Resounding to the Name of Mary: British queens and the Virgin

16 November is the Feast of the Patronage of Our Lady in the Roman Catholic communion and in honour of the Virgin's feast day, I would like to briefly profile the queens of England and Scotland who shared her name.

Marie de Coucy was the second wife of King Alexander II of Scotland. The daughter of a French lord, when her husband died of a fever in the Hebrides in 1249, Marie moved swiftly to ensure the succession of their seven year-old son, Alexander III. The boy, who went on to be one of medieval Scotland's greatest kings, was crowned at Scone at the height of summer. With the kingdom properly established under her son, Marie was able to remarry to a fellow Frenchman, to undertake pilgrimages to the great shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Kent and to split her time between France and Scotland. She died in her native country in 1285, in her late sixties. Her death spared her from enduring the death of her son, who was killed in a riding accident a year later. 

27th November 1830: The vision of Saint Catherine Labouré

Today the miraculous medal (above) is one of the most popular items of Catholic devotion. Its prayer of "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee" dates from 1830 and the visions associated with a young French nun called Catherine Laboure.

The year 1830 had not been a good one for French Catholicism - or, rather, it had not been a good year for the more devout and strict of its adherents. In July, the monarchy led by King Charles X was overthrown and replaced by a constitutional monarchy headed by the King's estranged liberal cousin, Louis-Philippe. The unpopularity of Charles X's government had been created not only by its draconian attitude towards the press and suffrage, but also because of its zealous devotion to state-Catholicism. There was a joke in France that Charles X's monarchy was government by priests and for priests. A few months, young Catherine Laboure claimed to have beheld two miraculous visions of the Virgin Mary around the time of the feast of Saint Vincent de Paul.

Catherine was a young and romantic girl, with a sensitive nature. Her mother had died at the age of nine and at her funeral, Catherine had allegedly gravitated towards a statue of the Holy Virgin, proclaiming, "Now you will be my mother." Later, she took the decision to become a nursing nun after she dreamed of Saint Vincent de Paul, who had founded the order Catherine subsequently joined. She was pretty, kind, hard-working, devout and gentle. Many of the sisters liked her for her goodness.

One night, Catherine awoke and claimed she heard the voice of a child calling her to the chapel. She went and later said that while in the chapel, she heard the voice of the Mother of God, which told her: "God wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the grace to do what is necessary. Tell your spiritual director all that passes within you. Times are evil in France and in the world."

The second vision took place on Saint Vincent de Paul's feast day, when Catherine saw the Virgin Mary surrounded by an oval light (which is also depicted on the medal, above.) Around the margin of the oval, Catherine felt or saw the words of the prayer which all the medals now carry, too. The oval gave way to twelve stars - the number of stars accredited to Mary by the Book of Revelation. Catherine also claimed she had seen the letter M, surmounted by a Cross, with images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary nearby. The Virgin told Catherine to report these things to her confessor, who should have them made into medals.

It took Catherine's spiritual director two years to believe her. In that time, he watched her closely for signs of dishonesty or mental imbalance. He found none and in 1832, the first of the miraculous medals were made by a local goldsmith. Catherine continued her life as a nursing sister, but she modestly did not like to draw attention to the fact that she was the one who had beheld the visions which gave birth to the Miraculous Medals. She died in 1876 and she was later buried in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Paris. Her body was declared incorruptible in 1933; she was beatified in the same year and she was formally raised to the sainthood by Pope Pius XII in 1947. 

Saint Jude and Me

"Hope doth lead from day to day." - Anne Boleyn, Queen of England (1507-1536)

Today is the feast day of Saint Jude the Apostle, one of the twelve biblical Apostles of Jesus Christ. He is sometimes referred to by one of his other names, Thaddaeus. His origins are somewhat confusing, since the earliest sections of the Church seemed to have regarded him as the stepson of the Virgin Mary and as a son born to Saint Joseph's first marriage. Later, it was suggested that he may have been the Virgin Mary's nephew or a distant cousin of Saint Joseph. Either way, he is usually simply referred to today as "a near kinsman of Jesus Christ" or as a "relative of our Lord, Jesus Christ, of Mary and Joseph". 

Ancient writers tell us that Jude preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia and Libya. According to Eusebius, one of the Christian Church's first historians, Jude returned to Jerusalem in AD 62 and assisted at the election of his brother, Saint Simeon, as the new Christian bishop of Jerusalem. According to Church tradition, Jude was martyred for his faith three years later, when he was executed in Beirut, alongside another one of the original Twelve - Saint Simon the Zealot. Along with another Apostle, Saint Bartholomew, he is usually credited with introducing Christianity to Armenia and he is therefore highly venerated by the Armenian Apostolic Church today. 

Saint Jude is, of course, most famous for the fact that in the Roman Catholic and Western Christian traditions, he is the patron saint of "lost causes and things despaired of." I have a battered prayer card in my wallet that calls him the "faithful intercessor of all who invoke your special help in time of need." Recently, I've had a lot of cause to think about Saint Jude and what his story has meant to me - particularly over the past year. 

As someone who was raised a Presbyterian, I'm not really supposed to believe in saints - much less in their intercession. However, I don't believe that life ends at death and, on that basis, I have absolutely no problem in believing in that, either. For my own part, all I can say is that both as a believer and a member of society, I do feel as if my personal attitude has been improved by the examples of the saints and by reflecting on what they did as people and what they mean as figures of inspiration. 

This time last year was the beginning of a very difficult time for me, both professionally and personally. It is not in my nature to "over-share" and I tend to be dubious about the hipster-sanctified culture of sharing everything, then hugging about it. To me, that seems to run the risk of substituting good friends for nice ones. (They're not the same thing.) In any case, from one October to the next, I was extremely unhappy. That is not to say that there weren't moments of happiness, but it was impossible to fully enjoy any aspect of my life with the metaphorical sword of Damocles hanging over my head. Then, in June, the professional and the personal hopped into bed together to create a new kind of frustration and a very close friend threw our friendship away for a reason that I, personally, will struggle to forgive for the rest of my life. Needless to say, it did not exactly produce a Bridesheadesque summer of golden memories. 

By the middle of August, it did feel as if all hope was more or less gone. I could not see anyway of getting out of the funk I found myself in. Then, in the space of two short weeks, everything changed. It was perhaps one of the few revolutions in history I was happy to see. (Seriously, France?) I acquired a fantastic new publisher, a new cover, a new book deal, three pieces of amazing career-news arrived my way in a very short period of time and I finally felt that feeling that Reinhold Niebuhr talked about - the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. 

It would have been impossible to keep going up until then without the unwavering support of a few very close and loyal friends. However, I can also say that, for me personally, it was my faith which kept me going - even when I was unaware of it doing so.

For over a year, I have carried a prayer card to Saint Jude in my wallet - ever since being first confronted by a situation in which I saw very little cause for optimism. Most days I pass Saint Jude's Church on Belfast's Ormeau Road and say a little prayer as I do so. The day I received the best career news to date was the start of the 2012 novena (or prayer cycle) to Saint Jude and today, his feast day, is the day when all my work is, for the time being, finished and I am posting off my new, signed contracts. I believe in coincidences; I don't believe this is one of them.

What message have I taken from the last year of living, sometimes unconsciously, with the message of Saint Jude? Well, in the first place, I've re-appreciated the power of prayer; not just because of its complexities, but because it focuses the mind, heightens our self-awareness and stops us from being so selfish. The second point is that this year has made me appreciate the power of hope. Or, as the current President of the United States might say, the audacity of it. 

Legend has it that shortly before she died, Anne Boleyn, one of the figures I admire most from history, left a handwritten note in her prayer-book saying that hope was the force that led people from one day to the next. I happen to believe that's true and, after this year, I believe it even more strongly. Saint Jude is often described as the patron saint of lost causes, but it might be better to describe him as the patron saint of causes that are seemingly lost. One prayer calls him "the Patron of things despaired of." Theist or not, Christian or not, the message of Saint Jude is an inspiring one because it reminds us that hope can shine in even the darkest of situations. Saint Jude's message is a bit like Winston Churchill's most famous quip - if you're going through Hell, then keep going! 

The ancient Mayans apparently believed 2012 would mark the apocalypse. 2012 wasn't the end of the world - it just felt like it sometimes. It doesn't anymore and thank God for that. That's not to say that difficult times won't come around again, but I have new faith in being able to make it through them - thanks to myself, the people around me and to the two thousand year-old Apostle to those in Despair. 

1st August, 1787: The Death of Alphonso de Liguori, writer and saint

Canonised in 1839 by the conservative Pope Gregory XVI, Saint Alphonsus (or Alphonso) de Liguori is today revered as a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church, due to his skill in philosophy and his devotion to Mariology (the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary.) Saint Alphonso de Liguori is also the patron saint of the Naples, arthritis sufferers, confessors and moralists.

Born in a suburb of the Naples in 1696, when the entire southern Italian peninsula was still ruled by the Spanish, Alphonso was born into a well-to-do family of the local aristocracy. His father was an officer in the navy of the Spanish king, Carlos II. The eldest of his parents' seven children, he was christened at a nearby church devoted to the Virgin Mary, which was appropriate given his later devotion to her. Like many future saints, Alphonso's initial academic interests seem to have been with law. He qualified and was a very successful lawyer, but not a happy one. In a private letter to a friend, he reflected that a solicitor's life was a "too full of difficulties and dangers; we lead an unhappy life and run risk of dying an unhappy death. For myself, I will quit this career, which does not suit me; for I wish to secure the salvation of my soul." At twenty-seven, Alphonso re-trained as a priest with the Oratorian order and once he was ordained, he spent the first few years of his ministry working with the homeless, particularly the young, in Naples. 

This early experience gave Alphonso de Liguori a passionate belief in the role the young should play in the church. With their help, he set up evening chapels, where the worship and service was led by the young people themselves. Here, Alphonso would deliver his sermons, which were apparently particularly effective at bringing young people back to their faith when they had become disillusioned with it. In time, seventy-two of these youth chapels would have been set-up across the Italian peninsula. Often appalled at the level of poverty in the Naples, Father de Liguori sometimes undertook missions to alleviate rural poverty, as well.

As his reputation grew, Alphonso also threw himself into the great theological debates of the era. At that time, Catholicism was being divided over the issue of a philosophy known as Jansenism. Jansenism was a form of Catholicism that had originated in France in the previous century and it drew heavily on the philosophy of the more extreme Protestant sects. Whilst it emphasised Catholicism's belief in original sin and human weakness, it also adopted the radical Protestant belief in pre-destination and denied the impact of Free Will. This led many to regard Jansenism as heresy. It was seen by many to be too harsh because it combined the worst elements of both strands of Christianity - Catholicism's belief in the innate sinfulness of humanity, with radical Protestantism's belief that there was nothing you could do to save yourself from it. With the help of his friend, Sister Maria-Celeste, Alphonso set-up a new Catholic faith organisation called the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, which combined two of Alphonso's great passions - to alleviate the suffering of the poor and to challenge Jansenism. 

For the next few decades, the work of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer consumed Alphonso de Liguori's life and in 1762, when he was sixty-six, he was made Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Gioti by Pope Clement XIII. As bishop, he kept up the work he had started with the Congregation and worked hard to eradicate poverty in his diocese. He also pursued his interest in theology, by publishing many books including Moral Theology (which was his great attack on Jansenism), The Great Means of Prayer, The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and his series promoting devotion to the Virgin Mary - The Glories of Mary, Marian Devotion, Prayers to the Divine Mother, Visitations to the Blessed Sacrament and the Divine Mother and Spiritual Songs. In total, Alphonso wrote over one hundred works of theology, as well as numerous hymns, some of which are still sung today. His books were aimed at ordinary Catholics and he sought to encourage them to engage emotionally with their faith, rather than be seduced away from it by the scientific rationalism that was being promoted during the 18th century by the "Age of Enlightenment." Within Catholicism, Alphonso was sometimes criticised by his fellow theologians, who either saw his promotion of Marianism as over-zealous (particularly in his repeated references to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which led to his books being briefly banned in some Catholic municipalities, like Venice) or for being too emotional and "crowd-pleasing." Some of his opponents were harsh in their criticism of him; others, like the Dominican pastor, Vincenzo Patuzzi, simply respectfully disagreed with his take on how central Mary should be to Catholicism.

In his old age, Bishop de Liguori resigned his post and went into retirement, living with a community of Redemptorist priests in Campani. He died there on 1st August 1787, at the age of ninety. By that point, his homeland of the Naples was an independent kingdom, ruled over by King Ferdinand IV and his wife (Marie-Antoinette's sister), Queen Maria-Caroline. Alphonso died only two years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, which was to seriously threaten and then, through the strength of its persecution, rejuvenate the pastoral, grass-roots Catholicism that Alphonso was so devoted to.

He was beatified by Pope Pius VII in 1816 and formally canonised as a Roman Catholic saint in 1839. Pope Gregory XVI, anxious to turn back the hands of time to the days before the Revolution and impressed, like many were and are, by the extent of Alphonso's holiness, was a keen champion of the canonisation of Alphonso de Liguori. Today, he is buried in the Basilica of Sant'Alfonso in Pagina, Italy.

How not to respond to a blog post

A few months ago, I blogged about a debate in London over a tourist poster that showed Mary I, sometimes known as "Bloody Mary," transforming into a zombie-demon. Aside from being stupid and ugly, which for me is the main criteria for condemning it, the poster had also thrown yummy mummies and historians in the Greater London area into something of a tizz. The mummies were mad because the ghoulish hologram traumatised their young progeny and the historians were face-palming all over the show because the advert perpetuated the idea that Mary Tudor was a blood-sucking hellish sociopath, who liked to beat young babies with her rosary beads and toss virtuous Protestant maidens into Vatican-sponsored incinerators. 

For those of you not up to date on your Tudor historiography, Mary I (painted above in 1544) was Henry VIII's eldest daughter; she ruled England, Wales and Ireland from July 1553 until her death in November 1558. During those five years, nearly 300 Protestants were burned to death for their faith, which led to the devoutly Catholic queen being nicknamed "Bloody Mary" when her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth, took the throne in 1558. Amongst historians, there has recently been a huge debate over whether or not Mary was quite the bloodthirsty incompetent that later Protestant historians portrayed her as; this is something which I did acknowledge in my post, but I did say that I think the rehabilitation of Mary might have gone a little bit too far.

Listen, I genuinely don't think that Mary Tudor was some sort of proto-Nazi who got her jollies from having hundreds of Protestants and anabaptists tortured and killed. But I do think that even by the standards of the Spanish Inquisition, she was a harsh and consistent persecutor of the nation's heretic minority. I think the pendulum of Marian revision has swung too far in the pro-Mary direction and to agree with the wonderful Leanda de Lisle, who spoke last week, we shouldn't have too "cuddly" a version of Mary. Or of any of the Tudors. They ruled as semi-absolute monarchs in a cut-throat and turbulent century. Cruelty, in one way or the other, was to be expected.

Anyway, after expressing the view that I think Elizabeth was more competent than Mary, I received this snippy little comment from a (you guessed it) anonymous reader. Ordinarily, I'd just post the comment and leave it at that, because apparently everyone has the right to free speech. But today, I thought - "Screw it." Actually, they don't. If they're going to be stupid, you should shut up. So, here's looking at you, Anonymous. The comment begins with a quote from my original article: - 

"The successes of Mary's reign do deserve to be analysed and appreciated for what they were, but the ludicrous revisionist attempt to suggest that the burnings were not unpopular or that the triumph of Protestantism was some weird Elizabethan fluke deserves to be treated with more than a little self-satisfied contempt." 

Oh please, you honestly think that with Protestants still an extreme minority in England (with no majority in any city to the extent that existed on the continent), and with the majority of the country pretty comfortable with Catholicism, that England would still have become protestant if there had been a Catholic heir after Mary? Especially one ruling for 40 years, and when they were implementing the same Counter-Reformation techniques that were so successful later in other places in Europe? (Except that they were doing it before the Council of Trent had even finished). How do you think that would have happened, exactly?
While Elizabeth was pretty talented, the fact that she was Protestant and ruled for 40 years is a MAJOR factor in the triumph of Protestantism, and to not recognize that is ludicrous in of itself. 
And honestly, what evidence do you have that the burnings really made people convert to Protestantism, etc? Foxe could only come up with one name, a guy who was already considering it before the burnings began. I know it seems like common sense to our modern sensibilities, but the fact is we just don't know how people felt about them. John Foxe's maltreatment of a lot of sources leading to his book often being the only one about many aspects of the burning certainly doesn't help. 

Well, let me begin by saying that starting a comment with the phrase 'Oh, please,' is the intellectual equivalent of a man stuffing a sock down his pants. You're trying to make yourself seem bigger than you are and it's not working. If you were intellectually capable of prosecuting the argument you're about to make, you wouldn't try to belittle your opponent through condescension before even starting. Would you? I.e. if you really were that big, you wouldn't need the sock. 

You ask, incredulously: "You honestly think..." - well, yes, I do, actually. Otherwise, I wouldn't have written it. A strange fluke I picked up at Oxford, I suppose.

You asked about a Catholic heir and what I think would have happened if Mary had produced one. Well, first of all, I have no idea about 'what if' because it's not real history, but if Mary had produced a child that was raised a Catholic, then, yes, I do think England might still be Catholic. However, I was a little confused about the next line of your argument because you seem curiously ill-informed about the exact nature of the Elizabethan religious settlement. You seem to be implying that it was Queen Elizabeth's religious faith, coupled with her longevity, that explains entirely the eventual triumph of Protestantism in England. Elizabeth I was, in fact, far more 'catholic' than is traditionally supposed. Like most of the country, she was what you called 'pretty comfortable with Catholicism'. But again, like most of the country, that comfort with traditional religion, (which is what it should be called rather than Catholicism, by the way), did not stop her siding with religious reformism after 1558. Why? Well, it seems that whilst most people were happy to conform, by 1558, they had lived under so many different variations of Christianity thanks to Henry, Edward and Mary that they were probably happy to adapt to any kind of "pick-n-mix" version of the "One True Faith," provided they were left in peace. It's not the stuff of martyrs, but there had been enough of them already, I suppose. Most people were comfortable with whatever was put in front of them, because they wanted to live, love and prosper without the fear of dying because of where they went on a Sunday. Under Mary and Elizabeth, those who chose to die for their faith made up an insignificant percentage of the population. And in both cases, the heroism of those martyrs led to them becoming ideological celebrities, both in their own time and in ours. 

Anyway, the so-called "via media" or Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559-1650 was not simply a result of the new Queen's allegedly protestant faith, like you suggested. Had Elizabeth had her way - which you seem to think she had - then, in fact, she would have produced a much more 'catholic' Church of England. Yes, it would have been separate from the jurisdiction of the Papal See, as it had been in her father's reign,  and there'd have been a serious trimming back on time devoted to the Virgin Mary and the saints. (And I for one am not thrilled about that, by the way - I love me some Hail Marys. But I digress.) Anyway, overall, if Elizabeth Tudor had gotten her own way, then the new Church of England would have been far more traditional in its liturgies, practices and hierarchy. However, this did not happen and that's because from the moment of her accession, Elizabeth was under sustained political pressure from the House of Commons and the emergent Puritan faction of elected MPs, who collectively forced Elizabeth to move "Left" on her religious settlement. Put simply, by 1559, the hostility towards Catholicism or traditional religion had solidified within much wider sections of the rural and urban elite than had been the case in 1553 - before Mary I took the throne. Why? Well, the obvious argument would be that  between 1554 and 1558, the burnings instituted by Mary Tudor's regime did harden hostility against Catholicism within the educated sectors of English society; meaning that when Elizabeth took the throne in November 1558, she found it impossible to ignore the concerns of the landed gentry and the elected politicians, all of whom put her under considerable pressure to create a far more 'protestant' Church of England. If you want evidence that the burnings were unpopular, then, I'm afraid, that's where it is. Whilst I understand that you're attempting to claim that the vast majority of English people didn't mind the 300 deaths by burning, it is quite simply absurd to make such a sweeping statement. You ask how I know the burnings weren't popular - one could justifiably flip the question and ask how do you know they were? The sad fact for historians is that we have almost no surviving sources that reflect public opinion amongst the majority of English Christians. The only parish records that survive and give any real kind of insight into grass-roots religious opinions are from the parishes that caused trouble to the government. In Mary's reign, those were the parishes that were too reformist; in Elizabeth's, they were the ones that were too conservative. I mean, maybe I'm wrong and you're right. Maybe you have a mass producing ouija board with impeccable results and a lot of time on your hands? But short of that, I'm not entirely sure how you could be any more clear about what the majority of Mary and Elizabeth's subjects thought than the rest of us are.

What is clear is that by the time Elizabeth came to the throne, the heresy trials and executions had galvanised opinion within a sizable section of the English and Welsh elite. Had that not existed, then the church Elizabeth created would have been very different and she would not have had to give way on things like church decorations, the Book of Common Prayer, clerical celibacy and clerical vestments. All of which she did, eventually, have to concede on in order to appease Protestant political pressure.

Of course, the main point of this is that whilst your arguments are wrong, you had the right to make them and it is always interesting to hear what readers think. However, your tone was smug, patronising and you entered the comment anonymously. To paraphrase a friend of mine - anonymity is tolerated, but manners are mandatory. Your comment was as irritating as it was stupid - and I've had quite enough of receiving remarks like it. I enjoy the debate - it's what history is about. I don't enjoy rudeness or running from one's own comments. It's cowardly and it's annoying. I don't write this blog to deal with passive aggressive nonsense from pseudo-intellectuals who can't sign their own names to their comments. 

Thank you.

You can read the original article here.

Merry Christmas, 2011

Whilst it's famously called "the most wonderful time of the year," Christmas can also be a difficult time for people. It can bring up painful memories of those no longer with us. Unfortunately, it can also add a great burden to those struggling either emotionally or financially. More often, though, Christmas is a combination of both sad and happy feelings, particularly as we get older, which reminded me of a lovely anecdote about the first Christmas. The story is told in an early Christian text, The Infancy Gospel of James, one of the earliest of the biographical hagiographies inspired by Christianity's leading figures.

"And Joseph  saddled the ass, and set her upon it; and his son led it, and Joseph followed. And when they had come within three miles, Joseph turned and saw her sorrowful; and he said to himself: Likely that which is in her distresses her. And again Joseph turned and saw her laughing. And he said to her: Mary, how is it that I see in thy face at one time laughter, at another sorrow? And Mary said unto Joseph: Because I see two peoples with my eyes; the one weeping and lamenting, and the other rejoicing and exulting."

I hope everyone reading has a safe and blessed Christmas. And thank you so very much for reading Confessions of a Ci-Devant throughout 2011.

"The Lady of Two Kingdoms": The Life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and Queen of England (Part 3)

This is part three in this blog's look at the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, which is part of the ongoing "Queens of England" series. Part one, "The Daughter of Riches" and part two, "A woman out of legend" are available by clicking on the linked titles.

"Why have I, the Lady of two kingdoms, reached the disgrace of this abominable old age?" - Eleanor of Aquitaine (1192)

The Middle Ages is one of the very few eras in history in which scenes from a fairy tale can come close to reality. One such scene took place at the height of summer in 1189 when a man called William Marshal, later described by the Archbishop of Canterbury as 'the greatest knight who ever lived', strode into the presence of the imprisoned Queen Mother of England and informed her that she was free at last. There was certainly a moment of sublime poetic fulfilment when William Marshal handed Eleanor of Aquitaine her freedom, because over twenty years earlier she had done the same thing for him. Long before he had won his reputation as the greatest jouster of the century and before he had distinguished himself by going on Crusade for a dead prince, Marshal, the youngest son of an unpopular family, had only begun his knightly career when he was captured by French warlords. Impressed by stories of the young man's bravery, and perhaps moved by stories of his family's penury, Eleanor had stepped in and paid the ransom, thus buying Marshal his freedom from captivity. Since that day, Marshal's destiny had been inextricably tied up with Eleanor's own and he had been the most trusted companion of her son, Henry the Young King, who had died six years earlier, begging that Marshal go to the Holy Land for him to atone for his sins. Returned, reinvigorated and already a legend of military prowess in his own lifetime, the forty-two year-old Marshal had won the favour of Prince Richard, now the new king. Set to marry Isabel de Clare, the daughter of the famous Strongbow, conqueror of Ireland, and his wife, Princess Aoife of Leinster, it was Marshal who Richard trusted with the special mission of going to England to free his mother from her gilded prison which she had endured since her children's botched rebellion against their father fifteen years earlier. With her husband's sudden death at Chinon and the accession of her favourite son to the throne, Eleanor of Aquitaine was once again being unleashed upon the world.

But the Eleanor who emerged back into the world in 1189 was a very different one to the woman who had been shut away from it in 1174. She was now an old woman, particularly by the standards of her day; she was already well into her sixties. Her first husband, Louis VII, had been dead for nearly nine years, having been succeeded by his son from his third marriage, Philip-Augustus (referred to from now on as Philippe, the Gallic form of his name). Three of Eleanor's sons - William, Henry and Geoffrey - had predeceased her and in the same summer as she became a widow, she also lost her daughter, Matilda, Duchess of Saxony and Bavaria, who had died suddenly at the age of thirty-three and been entombed in the gloomy splendour of the cathedral of Saint Blaise and Saint John the Baptist in Brunswick. Eleanor's eldest child, Marie, the child from her first marriage, was now a widow herself, still living in France as the Dowager Countess of Champagne. Her younger sister, Alix, was still Countess of Blois, married to the son of Eleanor's old rival. Of her daughters with Henry, Eleanor was currently living as Queen-consort of Castile, with a large family of her own, and twenty-four year-old Joanna also bore a crown, as wife to the King of Sicily. With all three of their brothers dead, it was Henry and Eleanor's two surviving sons who now mattered the most politically - thirty-two year-old Richard, the new king, and twenty-three year-old John, the heir-apparent.


If Eleanor felt anything at losing the husband who had been her lover, partner, spouse and jailer, she gave very little sign of it. Regrets or looking back are not things that Eleanor of Aquitaine seems to have overly bothered herself with. In many ways she had the final victory over Henry, not just by outliving him but by having him buried in Fontevrault - her burial ground. A magnificent structure rising splendidly out of the beautiful scenery of the Loire Valley, Fontevrault had been founded in 1100 by Eleanor's grandmother, Philippa of Toulouse, Duchess of the Aquitaine, and formally dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The complex boasted both a monastery and a convent, although in defiance of conventional ecclesiastical practise, Eleanor's family had insisted the convent should always have precedence over the monastery and that the head of Fontevrault as a combined unit should always be an abbess, rather than an abbot. Since becoming Queen of England, Eleanor had spent a fortune expanding and renovating Fontevrault, deliberately crafting its church into what she planned to be the necropolis of the Plantagenet dynasty. And Richard had dutifully honoured his mother's plans by sending his father's body to be buried at Fontevrault (below). After fifteen years in his custody, Eleanor had the satisfaction of knowing that Henry's body would spend all eternity on her land.

Richard had been in France when he heard the news that his father was dead and he was now King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine and Count of Nantes. It would take him some time to make the journey back to England for his coronation and in his absence, he showed his trust and love for his mother by giving her the power that both of her husbands had denied her. Freed from captivity, Eleanor was immediately appointed Regent of England and she moved quickly to London to undertake the business of government. And for someone who technically had very little experience of ruling in her own right, Eleanor showed herself to be remarkably good at it in a remarkably short period of time. It leaves the historian wondering what her husbands might have been able to achieve with her at their side, if they had only trusted her enough. The monk and chronicler, Matthew Paris, later wrote that Eleanor's time as Regent after her son's accession made her 'exceedingly respected and beloved' by the people. 

Eleanor's political skill in leading the English government during Richard's short absence before the coronation was theoretically a dress rehearsal for a much longer stint in control. Two years before, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria, Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, known in the West as "Saladin," had inflicted a terrible defeat and massacre on the Christian orders of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller in the Holy Land. Now, as it had been in the time of Eleanor's first marriage, the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem was under threat and, with crusading apparently running in his blood, Richard was determined to go East and finish the job his mother's first husband had so spectacularly failed at - to crush the Islamic caliphates and secure the supremacy of Christianity in the Middle East. He also hoped that in doing so, he would guarantee immortal salvation for his soul and glory for his name.

Extraordinary scenes of devotion to the Virgin Mary in Russia

An ancient relic, long venerated as a girdle or belt which belonged to the Virgin Mary, has completed its ten city-tour of Russia, after being loaned to the Russian Orthodox Church by the famous Mount Athos monastery in Greece, where it is usually kept and guarded. 

In an extraordinary display of the strength and vitality of Christianity in Russia after the downfall of the Soviet system, nearly half a million people queued for days in sub-zero temperatures to see the relic when it made its final stop in Moscow. The Church authorities were forced to extend its display in the cathedral by three days, whilst the secular authorities had to introduce fifteen hundred more police onto the street and re-route traffic.

The relic was displayed at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (above) which has special significance for Christianity's struggle against Communism in Russia. Originally created to give thanks for Imperial Russia's victory over the French invasion led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1812, it was remodelled several times and went through extensive renovations, before finally being consecrated as the largest Orthodox church ever built on the same day as the penultimate Romanov tsar to date, Alexander III, underwent his coronation. The cathedral had a long and extensive gallery honouring the war-dead from the wars of 1812. After the Revolution, the Soviet regime decided to destroy the cathedral in order to replace it with a building called "the Palace of the Soviets," a modernist monument to the October Revolution. In 1931, on Stalin's orders, the cathedral was dynamited and reduced to rubble. The "palace of the Soviets" was never completed due to lack of funds and time, with Stalin presumably being kept busy with the business of genocide. In the 1950s, the site was turned into a public swimming pool.

After the fall of Communism, a replica of the cathedral was faithfully rebuilt as a symbol of the resurgence of Russian Orthodoxy after seven decades of hardship.

You can watch the desecration and demolition of the original, HERE.

And The Daily Telegraph has an excellent article on the veneration of the relic at Christ the Saviour, HERE. 

June 23rd, 1703: The birth of the Polish Queen of France

On this day in 1703, one of the most powerful aristocrats in the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Stanislas Leszczynski, marked the birth of his second daughter, Maria (above). Christened in honour of the Virgin Mary, baby Maria's full name was Maria Carolina Sophia Felicity Leszczynska. Both the baby and her mother, Katarzyna, were in fine health and a year later they both acquired a royal title, when Stanislas was able to pursue his claim to the Polish throne, thanks to his Swedish allies.

Stanislas I's reign in Poland, however, was short and troublesome. He was king for less than six years before being deposed and the royal family were forced to seek asylum in Lorraine, in modern-day Germany. They also endured personal tragedy when Maria's elder sister, Anna, died at the age of eighteen after contracting pneumonia.

The ex-king, queen Katarzyna and princess Maria lived a relatively quiet life in exile until Maria's name was unexpectedly put on the list of ninety-nine eligible princesses to marry the young King Louis XV of France. Louis's chief minister, Cardinal Fleury, lobbied hard for the King to pick Maria as his bride, since she had royal ancestry and a Catholic faith (both pre-requisites for a future queen of France), but, more pragmatically, her father's lack of political power meant that a marriage to Maria Leczszynska would not pull France into any dangerous or costly foreign alliances, as the marriage of Louis XIV to Maria-Teresa of Spain had done in the previous century. The marriage between the exiled Polish princess and the handsome young monarch took place at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg on the Feast of the Assumption in 1725.

The marriage itself was an unremarkable one, although it began happily enough. Marie (as she was known in France) endured her husband's numerous affairs with relative complacency. With unusual grace and tact, she managed to establish a friendly relationship with her husband's most notorious mistress, the marquise de Pompadour, a famously beautiful but unpopular woman, who was the only one of Louis XV's lovers to treat the Queen with anything like respect and courtesy. 

A devout Roman Catholic, Marie was noted for her charities and for her large family. Between 1727, two years after the marriage, and ten years later, the Queen gave birth to eleven children - including the future duchess of Parma and the father of three kings, Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X. 

Novelist Elena Maria Vidal writes on her blog of Marie's time as queen: -

"She was the last Queen of France before Marie-Antoinette. According to Jean Chalon, the author of Chère Marie-Antoinette, Queen Marie tightened up the rigorous court etiquette that Marie-Antoinette later relaxed because it was so suffocating. The daughter of a dethroned monarch and wife of a blatantly unfaithful husband probably needed the highly ritualized pomp to boost her morale and her rank more than did the "daughter of the Caesars." Yes, Marie Lesczynska's father was the dethroned king of Poland and her early life was complicated by upheaval and exile. Yet for this very reason, she was chosen to be the bride of the teenage Louis XV, because she had no political entanglements at all... Queen Marie quietly devoted herself to her faith and her family. Courtiers mocked her Polish ways and called her La Polonaise even as later they would call Marie-Antoinette L'Autrichienne. All of Marie's children were as religious as she was; her youngest daughter Madame Louise became a Carmelite nun and a Blessed of the Church. Some of her grandchildren were quite pious as well, especially Louis XVI, Madame Clothilde, and Madame Elisabeth. Clothilde was declared a Venerable and Louis XVI and Madame Elisabeth can be regarded as martyrs in that they would not surrender their religious principles. When she died in 1768, Louis XV sincerely mourned the mother of his children, and we hope he regretted causing her such pain with his infidelities."

The problem with Međugorje

The small town of Međugorje in western Bosnia-Herzegovina has arguably become the greatest site of Catholic controversy about modern belief in the miraculous. Over the centuries, Catholicism has been no stranger to debate (and often violent disagreement) from within its own ranks about the veracity of various claims of miracles, prophecies and apparitions. Lourdes, Fatima, Knock, Padre Pio and Annaliese Michel have all provoked furious internal discussion within Catholicism about what bits, if any, of these alleged spiritual phenomenons are genuine and what bits, if any, are false - either deliberately or accidentally.

But even within the catalogue of Catholicism's often uneasy relationship with claims of the miraculous, Međugorje has touched a nerve. For those unaware of the story, in 1981 two local Catholic teenagers, Mirjana Dragicevic and Ivanka Ivankovic, claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary. The following day, four of their friends returned with them to the site outside the town where the Virgin had allegedly appeared, to see if Mirjana and Ivanka's story was true. On that day, Maria Pavlovic, Jakov Colo, Vicka Ivankovic and Ivan Dragicevic, all claimed that Mary had appeared to them, too. After making their claims, the six alleged visionaries were cross-examined by a Franciscan Father Bubalo and, since then, they have claimed that the Virgin has been repeatedly but intermittently appearing to them, transmitting messages for people to do penance, fast and pray more often. As with Lourdes, the influx of pilgrims has transformed Međugorje's local economy, turning it into one of the centres of the Balkans' tourist industry.

Unlike his predecessor, the current Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, has long been suspected of being sceptical about the shrine at Međugorje, but in 2008 he blessed a statue of Our Lady of Međugorje, sometimes also known as "the Queen of Peace," despite the fact that the Church has yet to formally rule one way or the other on the authenticity of the shrine's claims. Interestingly, however, the Vatican has prohibited priests from making a pilgrimage to the site, once they are ordained and in March 2010, the Vatican announced that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition) would be investigating Međugorje, under the leadership of His Eminence Cardinal Ruini. One bishop who certainly will not be speaking in Međugorje's favour is the Vatican's former exorcist, Bishop Gemma Andrea, who, in this article via Tea at Trianon, savages Međugorje's claims and goes even further, claiming that the shrine is sinister in origin.

We will have to wait for the Congregation's official findings, but the bizarre, fascinating, often unsettling story of Međugorje has not yet reached its climax.

Mater Dolorosa

In honour of Mother's Day, which occurs today in the United Kingdom, I thought I would write very briefly on one of the most vibrant cultural developments in medieval Christianity - the emergence of the cult of the Mother of Sorrows. Also known as Our Lady of Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, the veneration of the Virgin Mary in her guise as a sorrowing mother was first given its own feast day by a church council at Cologne in 1413, when it was decreed by the Church that the third Sunday after Easter should be set aside to honour Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows. The decision to inaugurate another Marianist festival was primarily a response to the recent emergence in Bohemia of Hussitism, which denied the importance or utility of venerating the Virgin, particularly in relation to remembering the Passion.

However, prior to the fifteenth century, the Mater Dolorosa had already been de facto venerated by many European Christians, particularly in the north of the continent, where outbreaks of the plague were both more frequent and more virulent. The earliest recorded ceremonies to honour Mary as Queen of Sorrow however took place in the early 1240s in Italy, within a small monastic community called the Order of the Servants of Mary, who adopted as the symbol of their order the image of a weeping Virgin Mary standing beneath the blood-stained Cross. In time, the Seven Sorrows of Mary were defined as the day when God spoke through the Prophet Simeon to her in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, her flight into Egypt in the wake of the slaughter of the Innocents in Bethlehem, the panic she felt at losing the Child Jesus during the Holy Family's pilgrimage to Jerusalem and then the final four were lifted from episodes in the Passion - seeing her Son carrying His Cross to Calvary, the Death of Jesus, Mary receiving the Body of Jesus into her arms and the burial of Jesus in the tomb provided for him by Saint Joseph of Arimathea. 

Happy Lady Day

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation in the liturgical calendar and until 1752, it marked the beginning of the new year in Britain and her colonies overseas, including the future United States. To read my history of the feast, click here.

Within the church's calendar, the feast honours the visit of Saint Gabriel the Archangel to the Virgin Mary to inform her that she was to conceive the Christ Child.

"And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.' Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: 'Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.'"

- The Gospel according to Saint Luke, Chapter II

Merry Christmas

"And he saddled the ass, and set her upon it; and his son led it, and Joseph followed. And when they had come within three miles, Joseph turned and saw that Mary was sorrowful; and he said to himself: 'Likely that which is in her distresses her.' And again Joseph turned and saw her laughing. And he said to her: 'Mary, how is it that I see in thy face at one time laughter, at another sorrow?' And Mary said to Joseph: 'Because I see two peoples with mine eyes; the one weeping and lamenting, and the other rejoicing and exulting.'"

- The Protoevangelium of James (approximately early 2nd century A.D.)

Christmas is a time for rejoicing, but for many people it is also a time for sadness - either as they mark the first time they have spent the holiday without a particular loved one or recalling painful memories. The above verse from a Jewish-Christian hagiography, intended to be a life of the Virgin Mary up to and until the point where she features in the biblical Gospel according to Saint Luke, is a very pretty and moving verse (I think), which captures the twin emotions Christmas can often invoke for people. In any case, I wish everyone the very best of Christmases and hope you and your family have been together and above all safe at this time of the year. 

Faith, Reason and the Virgin Birth

".... There is much confusion as to the precise meaning of the Virgin Birth.  It is not to be confused with the Virginal Conception of Our Lord.   The Church, from the earliest times, has articulated the Perpetual Virginity of Our Lady as pertaining to three distinct moments:  before the birth of Jesus (ante partum), during the birth of Jesus (in partu), and after birth of Jesus (post partum).  Virtually every time the magisterium has spoken on the subject, this threefold distinction is made.  This teaching is derived from the early fathers of the Church, who maintained, defended and made the teaching a universally held truth..."

Via Tea at Trianon comes a defence of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and, in particular, the full meaning and theological relevance of the Virgin Birth.  

December 8th, 1542: The Birth of Mary, Queen of Scots

A thick snow and a treacherous layer of ice enveloped the Scottish countryside as the faithful made their way to church to observe the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on that dark and frigid day in 1542. Now, the feast and its name are frequently misunderstood, for the Immaculate Conception has in fact nothing to do with the virgin birth or the Incarnation of Christ, as is so often assumed. Instead, it is the belief that at the moment of her conception in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne, the Holy Virgin - having been conceived by normal and earthly means - underwent a pre-natal miracle, whereby she was preserved forever from the stain of Original Sin. She therefore became, in the moment of her conception, full of grace. Debates about this philosophical concept had both bedevilled and enlightened the Middle Ages, where the issue of whether or not the Immaculate Conception was true, false or unknowable had been hotly debated within the universities and monasteries of the West. It was only in 1854 that it was infallibly defined as requisite dogma for believing Roman Catholics, but it had enjoyed its own feast day in the west for nearly eight centuries by that stage. It had not always been the happiest or most tranquil of theological beliefs. The Dominican Order were still, in the sixteenth century, objecting that the entire notion of the Immaculate Conception pertained to blasphemy and implicitly belittled the sacrifice at Golgotha. Even some of the medieval church's most devout enthusiasts for veneration of Mary in its fullest form had been opposed to the Feast - Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, in particular, had waxed into near apoplectic fury at the very mention of it. Aquinas insisted that Mary had become immaculate at the end of her life, not at the beginning. Bernard was more aggressive, dispatching a scathing letter to the priests of Lyon Cathedral when he heard they were contemplating celebrating a Mass in honour of the Immaculate Conception in 1150. As far as he was concerned, venerating Mary's conception in Saint Anne's womb was tantamount to venerating a sexual encounter - "Or are we to assume that there was no sin where lust was not absent?" he snapped. The belief in Mary's innate sinlessness, however, was particularly popular amongst lay Christians, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the Franciscan order, which had much more flexibility and sensitivity when it came to the feelings of the laity, leant their support to the Immaculate Conception, in opposition to the Dominicans, who still zealously opposed it.

By the beginning of the fifth decade of the sixteenth century, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception was therefore an optional festival to be observed as the diocese, priest or congregation felt appropriate. If any Scotsman or woman had been able to brave the horrific winter blizzards to make it to the local chapel in time for Mass that day, it is likely that they would have been attending a church which did celebrate the festival. In Scotland, it was generally popular with Catholics across most of the social hierarchy. If any parishioners had been attending Mass in the tiny chapels which dotted the countryside in the forty snow-covered miles between the Palace of Linlithgow and the Palace of Falkland, it may have been that at the very moment sweet hymns, prayers and incense were wafting their way towards Heaven in praise of a celestial Mary that their thoughts would have been interrupted as they heard the royal messengers thunder-by on horseback outside, carrying news that another, more terrestial Mary had entered the world.

The 27 year-old Queen of Scotland, Marie, had not relished sending out those messengers. She had wanted more than anything to give her husband a male heir. Both of their sons - James and Robert - had died as infants and now the hopes of the Stewart dynasty rested on the tiny, frail little princess sleeping contentedly in her sumptuous cradle. Her mother, Marie de Guise, was a woman whose entire life had been spent as living proof of accepting the things one cannot change. She recovered quickly, both from the rigours of childbirth and from the disappointment of the baby's gender. The same could not be said for her royal husband, who was lying in the midst of a soul-crushing depression in his apartments at Falkland Palace, not having made it to his wife's side either because of the weather or because of his mental health. When the news was brought to him that Queen Marie had been delivered of a girl, rather than a boy, the King lay in his bed stock-still for a moment, before muttering, "It came from a woman, and it will end in a woman." Then, he turned his face to the wall and gave up even the pretence of wanting to carry on living.

James V's cryptic comment was an acknowledgement of his ancestress, Marjorie Bruce, a Scottish princess from whom the Stewarts had acquired their subsequent claim to the throne. The rule of the Stewarts had begun with a woman and, in the shape of his tiny daughter, it would end with one as well. No woman could possibly hope to hold a kingdom as troublesome as Scotland, considering how many men had failed to do so over the last few centuries. That Mary would prove incapable of holding Scotland under her rule was true, but her father could not known how incorrect he was in saying the Stewarts' association with monarchy would die with her. It is thanks to Mary that James V's descendants still sit on the British throne today.

The King was ensconced at Falkland Palace when he heard the news of his daughter's birth, one of the Scottish royal family's most conspicuously magnificent homes. The birth itself had taken place at Linlithgow Palace, a fantastically beautiful residence which seemed like something lifted right out of a fairy tale. With its many turrets and graceful stonework, rolling green fields and breathtaking setting beside a loch, Linlithgow belonged to a world of Arthurian legend, rather than 16th century reality. It was here, in its luxurious and pretty confines, that Marie de Guise had chosen to give birth for the third time since her marriage to the King of Scots, a man curiously torn between his twin obsessions of the sacred and the sexual. He had loved God as he had loved women - intensely, viscerally, potently. He had been married before, to Princess Madeleine de Valois, a delicate teenager who had not long survived the traumatic sea journey to the harsher climate of Scotland.

Marie de Guise had been born in 1515 into one of the greatest and most ancient families of the French aristocracy, the House of Guise, whose wealth and power had already begun to rival that of the Valois, France's royal family at the time. As a young girl, she had been married off to the Duc de Longueville and with him she had become the mother of two sons. When the duke died in 1537, he left Marie a widow at the relatively tender age of twenty-two. She was not beautiful, or even particularly pretty, but she was intelligent, gracious, sophisticated and determined. She was also fabulously well-connected and had proven her ability to procreate thanks to her first marriage. By the standards of her day, Marie was a tall woman and hearing news of this, King Henry VIII of England, recently made a widower by his third wife's death in childbed, proposed marriage to the fetching French heiress. Henry too was tall (as well as increasingly wide) and he proclaimed, "I am a big man and I need a big woman!" Marie replied that although she was a big woman, she had a tiny neck and therefore couldn't risk a marriage like poor Anne Boleyn's. Henry's pique was turned into incandescent fury when Marie added insult to injury by marrying his troublesome nephew, James, King of Scots, a year later. The thwarted monarch then flounced off into a disastrously short-lived marriage to the Princess of Cleves. Only time would show what a dangerous enemy he had become to Marie de Guise.

Now, four years later, it was difficult to tell if Marie regretted her decision to marry into Edinburgh rather than London. The great love of her life had been her first husband, not her second, and the Scottish nobility was fractious, quarrelsome and treacherous. Many resented the "Auld Alliance," the ancient diplomatic ties between Scotland and France, which Marie represented and more and more of the people were beginning to turn towards the new Protestant religion, rather than the old Catholic faith which Marie's family in France considered themselves to be one of the European champions of. Still, perhaps Scotland with all its troubles was preferable to a marriage with Henry VIII. After all, earlier that year he had cut off the head of his fifth wife, a flighty and vivacious teenager who had allegedly been carrying on affair with a handsome young buck of the court behind her corpulent husband's sizable back. To butcher one wife was extraordinary; to butcher a second looked like a worrying habit. Moreover, Marie had never intimated by word or gesture that she found Scotland anything other than delightful. In her justly acclaimed 1968 biography of Mary of Scots, Lady Antonia Fraser wrote that her mother Marie was "a woman of innate tact [who] was at pains to please her husband by praising his country. Fife, for example, she admired extravagantly, and confided to James that although she had been warned in France that she would find Scotland a barbarous country, destitute of comforts, ever since her arrival she had found the exact reverse". Scotland was both more civilised and more luxurious than its European counterparts liked to pretend, but it was also a political minefield as Marie eventually discovered to her cost.

The thick blanket of snow presented Scotland at its most rugged, its most perfectly and spectacularly beautiful on the day of Mary Stewart's birth. But, it would not be a true part of Mary's story if it was not saturated in drama and intrigue. Scotland was in the depth of one of the worst national catastrophes and humiliations in its history. Her father the King had badly bungled his torturous diplomatic interactions with England or, more specifically, with his uncle King Henry. The rapid deterioration in Anglo-Scottish relations had been sped-up by a lethal combination of King James's poor decisions and King Henry's venomous cruetly. On November 24th, two weeks before the princess's birth, the two armies had clashed at the Battle of Solway Moss. The result was a devastating defeat for Scotland, in which half of the fighting flower of the Scottish army lost their lives. Grief stricken and traumatised by what he had seen on the battlefield and realising that his kingdom was now essentially defenceless in the face of his uncle's vindictive wrath, King James had returned to his palace at Falkland, taking to his bed. And it was there that the news that his two dead baby boys and thousands of dead soldiers had been replaced by a screaming, useless, defenceless girl was brought to him by messengers who knew they could expect no reward for bringing such tidings.

Back at Linlithgow, Queen Marie proceeded like a model of propriety. Everything must be done according to the rule book of royal etiquette and it was arranged that the princess should be baptised in the nearby Church of Saint Michael, which stood at the palace gates and which can still be seen today. The baby had been born a trifle premature, with the Queen perhaps going into labour as a result of the worry caused by the recent defeat of the national army. The result was unhelpful rumours that the "Queen was delivered before her time of a daughter, a very weak child, and not likely to live". The Queen Dowager of Hungary heard later that it was a miracle the baby had lived to see Christmas given the state she was in at the time of her birth.

Much of what happened next sounds miraculous or, rather, improbable. James V died six days after his daughter's birth, at the age of thirty. His daughter thus became a reigning queen before her one week-birthday and his 27 year-old widow assumed the Herculean task of ruling Scotland for her, struggling to preserve Mary's inheritance in the face of the epic political turmoil James V left in his wake. It was a task which would have felled a lesser-woman and whatever one might think of the de Guise clan, Marie de Guise was never anything less than an heroic woman.

And so it was, in a turret room in the north-west tower overlooking a freezing loch that the tragic, mesmerising and improbable life of Mary, Queen of Scots first began. It was a life which was to bewitch and betray, dazzle and destroy, in equal measure. She was the daughter of a great woman and a troubled man, born into a turbulent age. It's difficult to think of a more appropriate entrance for the life of one of history's most enigmatic and controversial queens.

September 24th: The Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham

 Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham, with its cult centre in Norfolk, England. There are currently two churches in Walsingham - one a High Anglican chapel, the other (one mile away) is its Roman Catholic sister. In the Anglican church, a small Russian Orthodox shrine to the Virgin is also kept, so Christians of all denominations are represented. In a further sign of Marianist ecumenicalism, pilgrims regularly walk barefoot along the Holy Mile between the two churches. For High Anglican and Catholic members of the Armed Forces, there is a long tradition stretching back to the First World War, which placed the Virgin of Walsingham as one of the British army, navy and air force's patrons.

Although it is certainly a lovely place, Walsingham is by no means as well-known as other Marianist shrines at, say, Lourdes or Fatima, or even Knock and Loretto. Its visitor numbers are ant-like in comparison to those who visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, the most visited Catholic shrine in the world. But, prior to the English Reformation, Walsingham was perhaps one of the most visited Christian centres in Europe, certainly in England, and it boasted an enormous, lavish complex and church.

The Feast of the Assumption, 1524

"It would be so wonderful to see you all again for Assumptiontide, which we are marking with a supper and dance at Hever this year, as usual. I do so hope you can make it. Anne is back from London, as the Queen is on progress for the summer, and, as usual, she has been the most wonderful help to me, especially as this time of year always has such unhappy memories with the anniversary of Henry's death weighing upon my mind. Mary has come back from Leeds, where she and William have been decorating their new house together, although sadly William could not accompany her this time, as His Majesty had need of him. My husband, alas, remains in London for much the same reason and George has gone back to Oxford, to spend the holiday with some of his classmates... You asked about the Wyatts in your last letter. Well, old Sir Henry remains a martyr to the gout, as always, his eldest girl, Margaret, is at Court with Anne and she has come home at the same time and for the same reason. Her younger sister, Mary-Anne, is due to be presented as a debutante at Court, next summer, with my mother acting as her sponsor. Truth be told, I think she is rather looking forward to getting away and once it is decided whether she is to presented to the Queen or to the Duchess of Suffolk, preparations can begin in earnest. As for Tom and his wife, Bess, I am afraid I am at a loss as to what to tell you. In short, Jocasta, it can best be put this way - Tom has fallen in love with Anne who, quite sensibly, has rejected his advances, and Bess has fallen in love with anyone and everyone, except her husband. Their marriage is not just miserable but conspicuous in its misery, which  makes matters worse, as I know all too well from the behaviour of my brother in recent months. In any case, the Wyatts' marriage has caused quite the scandal, as only scandals which take place in either the London Set or in small, rural communities, can. And it is to Tom and Bess's great misfortune that they happen to be members of both.... Do write to me with all your news, With love and prayers, Elizabeth."

- A letter from Lady Elizabeth Boleyn to Lady Jocasta Howard, from The Rise and Fall of the House of Boleyn by Gareth Russell

Today marks the Feast of the Assumption in the Church Calendar and the extract below comes from an incomplete novel of mine, The Rise and Fall of the House of Boleyn.©

In this scene, some members of the Boleyn family are spending the summer of 1524 at their main residence, Hever Castle, in the southern county of Kent (above.) Kent, which is known as the "Garden of England," was much-loved by the Boleyns and despite having homes in Essex, Norfolk and London, as well as dozens of minor manors across the kingdom, Hever remained their favourite castle.

In the summer of 1524, Henry VIII had not yet declared his interest in the youngest of the Boleyn children, Anne, and her elder brother, George, had recently been betrothed to the society heiress, Jane Parker. The eldest Boleyn, Mary, had been married for four years to the courtier and art collector, Sir William Carey. Also in residence at Hever are the girls' mother, Lady Elizabeth, and their Anglo-Irish grandmother, Lady Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of the Earl of Ormonde, who, today, would be described as "Ascendancy" class.

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As events transpired, Tom Wyatt was not to lay eyes on Anne again until a full six weeks after her seventeenth birthday, when the impending Feast of the Assumption made it impossible for him to avoid her any longer. It was traditional that, on some of the great Holy Days - mainly the Epiphany, Easter Sunday, the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the Assumption and All Saints' Day - the most prominent families of the Weald would congregate in one of the families' parish chapels to attend Mass together. Tom had been in London for Saint Peter and Saint Paul's Day, meaning that he had mercifully avoided the Boleyns' company, but with the arrival of the Assumption and his return to the family home at Allington, he could not put off a reunion any longer. Moreover, when Tom had discovered that, this year, the Assumption was to be marked by a Mass at St. Peter's Church, "the Boleyns' chapel," and had subsequently tried to wriggle out of attending, his ailing father had insisted he attend, in order to pay his respects to the new Earl of Kent, who would almost certainly be there, now that the mourning for his late father had ended.

Riding past Hever on the way to the church, on that predictably sweltering Assumptiontide, Tom could see lanterns, tables and decorations being set out around the gardens of the castle by a busy army of servants, all at Anne and Elizabeth's instructions, he presumed. A small statue of the Virgin had already been installed near the bridge, with poesies of flowers clustering around her feet. From somewhere in the grounds, he could hear the voice of three maids cheerfully singing Star of the Sea in honour of the Holy Mother. Later, there would be music and dancing far into the balmy evening in honour of the Assumption and the overwhelming aroma of the flowers the Boleyn women had clustered around their garden as decoration for the night-time ball wafted softly through the heavy summer morning air. Hever always reminded him of Anne and seeing the castle and its gardens abuzz with preparations that bore all the hallmarks of her sensibilities, Tom felt a new sense of foreboding at seeing her after their last, disastrous meeting.

The Feast of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels

Today is the Feast of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels. In the great medieval epic, Dante's Divine Comedy, perhaps one of the finest works of European literature, in which the author takes an imagined journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, Dante and his dead love, Beatrice, reach the section of Heaven where the Virgin sits, surrounded by an angelic host singing of their love for "the Rose in which the Word Divine became incarnate."

Dramatised in Paradiso, Canto XXIII of the Divine Comedy, in Dante's presence, the angels sing: -

"I am Angelic Love, that circle round
The joy sublime which breathes from out the womb
That was the sanctuary of our Saviour;
And we shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while
Thou followest thy Son, and mak'st diviner
The sphere supreme, because thou enterest there."

Thus did the circulated melody
Seal itself up; and all the other lights
Were making to resound the name of Mary. ....

Thereafter they remained there in my sight,
"Regina coeli" singing with such sweetness,
That ne'er from me has the delight departed.

Although the Inferno section of the Divine Comedy is much more famous than those chronicling the author's imagined version of Purgatory and Paradise, it is definitely worth reading all three, if one has the chance. Dante's work still has the power to move and shock, in equal measure, not just because it captures the sheer depth and sophistication of medieval piety, which is all too often dismissed as being simplistic, intellectually-backward nonsense but also because in the midst of his fantastic writing - merging both theology and imagination - there is something still profoundly heartbreaking about the fact that when it came to picking a guide to take his autobiographical self through the splendours of Heaven, Dante chose the figure of his deceased love, Beatrice, a tragic declaration of how much he still missed her and how he hoped one day to be re-united with her.