The Stanley who found religion – Sir John Stanley of Honford.

  Sir John Stanley was a grandson of Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby and Eleanor Neville. His father was James Stanley (c 1465-1525) a cleric who eventually became Bishop of Ely. (He retained multiple benefices and seems to have been as often in Lancashire as in Ely. He is buried in what is now Manchester…

The Mysterious Disappearance of Henry Pole the Younger in the Tower of London

  Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @sparkypus.com Picture this…a young lad of about thirteen or thereabouts.   Royal Plantagenet blood coursing through his veins.  His father is dead and no longer able to neither protect nor  save him.  His mother is also no longer around to help or comfort him.    Life has changed for him…

Silent meals, a buddy system, and wine ‘in moderation.’….

This is an article about the Templars. Its sub-heading is Silent meals, a buddy system, and wine ‘in moderation‘. All very well and good, bon appetit and so on, but celibacy was mandatory. Why? Was a life of so-called chastity really necessary? I say this of the Church in general, and any other religion/organisation that…

The Bishop, the MP, the scientist, the historian and the brewer

The preacher at St. Paul’s stated that the late King’s surviving issue were illegitimate. On this occasion, it wasn’t Dr. Ralph Shaa on 22nd June 1483 about Edward IV’s sons but Rt. Rev. Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London and Westminster, on 9 July 1553 about Henry VIII’s daughters, at which time Jane was proclaimed. As…

Does this later case explain Henry Pole the Younger’s fate?

In the years from 1518, before he left England again in 1536, Reginald Pole occupied a number of ecclesiastical ranks, including that of Dean of Exeter. During the early 1530s, just as Henry VIII sought his first annulment, Eustace Chapuys was pressing Reginald to marry Princess Mary, the cousin he eventually served from Lambeth Palace.…

The nun and the abbey chaplain lived happily ever after….or did they?

  The following is an extract from https://www.britainexpress.com/attraction-articles.htm?article=20 and concerns the fate of the nuns of Romsey Abbey after the reformation:- “. . .What happened to the nuns after the abbey was dissolved? We don’t know, with one notable exception. One of the nuns was Jane Wadham, a cousin of Jane Seymour, Henry’s third queen.…

Thou canst marry; er, sorry, thou canst not….

I confess I had never considered this before. When Henry VIII made himself the head of the church in England, it became possible for hitherto celibate priests to marry. This situation continued under Henry’s son, Edward VI. But then, Catholic Queen Mary ascended the throne. . .and promptly sacked all those priests who had married.…

A strange Reformation relic

Think of a cold week in this or your own country, with snow. On the last day, it thaws. You look out during the late afternoon and there remains a small patch of snow, in a seemingly random location.   In a way, the English Reformation was like this. It began, arguably, in 1534. By the…