{"id":100577,"date":"2023-06-20T15:04:04","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T21:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=100577"},"modified":"2023-06-22T03:36:22","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T09:36:22","slug":"tales-of-the-gloucester-crypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/06\/tales-of-the-gloucester-crypt.html","title":{"rendered":"Tales of the Gloucester Crypt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"cathedral<\/a>
Gloucester Cathedral\u00a0 (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Our focus today was on the city of Gloucester, and most particular on the city\u2019s cathedral<\/a>.\u00a0 When I think of Gloucester, I\u2019m afraid that the very first thing that occurs to me is Richard III, who reigned from 1483 until his death \u2014 the last English king to die in combat and the last of the Plantagenet monarchs \u2014 at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.\u00a0 Prior to his brief tenure as king of England, Richard was duke of Gloucester.<\/p>\n

\u201cA horse! A horse!\u201d the beleaguered Richard cries shortly before his death in Shakespeare\u2019s Richard III<\/em>. \u201cMy kingdom for a horse!\u201d\u00a0 And it\u2019s Shakespeare\u2019s Richard \u2014 one of the greatest and most cunning villains in all of literature \u2014 of whom I particularly think, although some are now arguing that Shakespeare\u2019s portrayal of the king is wildly unjust and the product and embodiment of Tudor propaganda.\u00a0 (The Tudors were the family who displaced the Plantagenets and who overthrew and killed Richard.)\u00a0 One of the most spectacular pieces of acting that I\u2019ve ever seen was Gary Armagnac\u2019s<\/a> depiction of Richard III at the 1994 Utah Shakespeare Festival<\/a>.\u00a0 For sheer brilliant evil, I\u2019ve never seen the like (although some of my critics would happily give me the edge in goofball evil, if not in brilliance).\u00a0 It is etched unforgettably in my memory.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
Robert de Normandie in combat before the walls of Antioch, Wikimedia Commons public domain painting by Jean-Joseph Dassy (1850)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Conqueror<\/a>
Tomb and effigy of Robert II, Duke of Normandy, in Gloucester Cathedral. The pose is a curious one. He seems to be about to get out of bed while reaching with his right hand for his sword.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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In any case, Richard Plantagenet is nowhere to be found in Gloucester Cathedral.\u00a0 Instead, the cathedral is the site of the tomb of Osric, the Anglo-Saxon King of the Hwicce, who founded what would eventually become<\/em> the cathedral in about AD 679.<\/p>\n

The tomb of Robert II of Normandy (ca. AD 1051-1134), or Robert Curthose, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, is also found in the cathedral.\u00a0 Robert was, by reputation, a heroic warrior.\u00a0 But he was passed over by his father for the rule of England, and probably for good reason.\u00a0 Somewhere in the cathedral literature today I saw a reference to him as \u201cthe king we never had\u201d and, elsewhere, as \u201cborn to be king.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"fan<\/a>
One of the glories of Gloucester Cathedral is the fan vaulting of its Great Cloister
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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In October 1216 Gloucester Cathedral was the venue for the coronation\u00a0of\u00a0Henry III, after the death of his father, the notorious King John, who has a bit of a public image problem and who could use some reputation management.\u00a0 John has his own play among Shakespeare\u2019s historical dramas, but he is probably most famous for his enforced signing of the Magna Carta<\/em>, on which he later tried to renege.\u00a0 He\u00a0has been portrayed in film by Claude Rains (opposite Errol Flynn\u2019s title role and Basil Rathbone\u2019s Sir Guy of Gisbourne in the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood<\/em>, which has a special and cherished place in my unwritten autobiography) as well as by a cowardly thumb-sucking lion (voiced by Sir Peter Ustinov in the 1973 Disney Robin Hood<\/em>).\u00a0 In The Lion in Winter<\/em>, a very memorable 1968 film, John, who is the son of Henry II (Peter O\u2019Toole) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) and the younger brother of Richard the Lion Heart (Sir Anthony Hopkins in his first significant film role), is portrayed as an effete weakling, but also as a dishonorable schemer.<\/p>\n

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\"last<\/a>
The tomb of Edward II in Gloucester Cathedral
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Perhaps the cathedral\u2019s chief claim to specific fame \u2014 apart, that is, from its repeated use in the Harry Potter films (which isn\u2019t altogether uncommon in the places we\u2019ve visited during this trip) \u2014 is that it is the burial place of Edward II, the seventh Plantagenet king of England (who reigned, rather poorly, from 1307 to 1327 and who died under mysterious circumstances while effectively under house arrest in nearby Berkeley Castle).\u00a0 We had already spent some time with Edward II up in Scotland, when our group visited the site of the 23-24 June 1314 Battle of Banockburn, where the forces of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, inflicted a decisive defeat upon Edward\u2019s vastly larger army \u2014 some sources give figures of 27,000 English to 6,000 Scots \u2014 during the First War of Scottish Independence.<\/p>\n

That was perhaps an omen of things to come for Edward II, as was the refusal of the lord of Stirling Castle \u2014 a place that we visited on the first day of our group tour \u2014 to grant him asylum following the battle.<\/p>\n

There was actually a petition, centuries ago, seeking canonization for Edward II, probably on the basis of the fact that he was an anointed king and that his possible murder thus represented martyrdom.\u00a0 The Vatican apparently never acknowledged or responded to the petition.\u00a0 Which was probably lucky for Rome, since there is at least a fifty-fifty chance that Edward\u2019s sexual practices were, umm, quite catholic.\u00a0 Which is to say that they may not have been Catholic.\u00a0 But this may be mere rumor, the result of propaganda designed to justify his having been deposed from the throne, and it may perhaps not be true at all.\u00a0 (The simple fact that a source may be old, or contemporary, doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that it\u2019s not biased or partisan or that it\u2019s accurate.\u00a0 Historiography requires wisdom and judgment and, even so, it\u2019s an inexact \u201cscience.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
After his defeat by Scottish forces at the Battle of Banockburn, King Edward II of England tried to retreat to Stirling Castle, but the castle\u2019s lord honored an agreement with the Scots and refused to let him enter.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Age of Chivalry has much to commend it.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it\u2019s largely myth, and it was as corrupted by human wickedness as every other age has been.\u00a0 Perhaps, though, we can learn some virtues from the romanticized, purified accounts of it that survive in literary texts from the medieval period through the Victorians and beyond.\u00a0 I still love them.<\/p>\n

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Posted from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Our focus today was on the city of Gloucester, and most particular on the city\u2019s cathedral.\u00a0 When I think of Gloucester, I\u2019m afraid that the very first thing that occurs to me is Richard III, who reigned from 1483 until his death \u2014 the last English king to die in combat and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":100589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36296,36299,36302,3016,31063,36305],"class_list":["post-100577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-edward-ii","tag-edward-iii","tag-gloucester-cathedral","tag-john","tag-magna-carta","tag-robert-ii"],"yoast_head":"\nTales of the Gloucester Crypt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Our focus today was on the city of Gloucester, and most particular on the city's cathedral.\u00a0 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