Catholic Online Forum

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

British archaeologists are hoping to find the lost remains of King Richard III by digging up a car park believed to be his burial site.

Historians believe the medieval king, who ruled England from 1483 and is today best known as the villain of a William Shakespeare play, was buried at a church in Leicester, central England, after his death during a battle in 1485.

But the Franciscan friary, known as Greyfriars, was demolished in the 16th century and its exact location was lost.

But the Franciscan friary, known as Greyfriars, was demolished in the 16th century and its exact location was lost.

It has been rumoured that the remains of Richard III - the last monarch of the House of Plantagenet - were thrown into the River Soar after monasteries across the country were dissolved under Henry VIII.

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

Cirencester Abbey

Cirencester Abbey in Gloucestershire was founded as an Augustinian monastery in 1117 on the site of an earlier church, the oldest-known Saxon church in England, which had itself been built on the site of a Roman structure. The church was greatly enlarged in the 14th century with addition of an ambulatory to the east end. The abbot became mitred 1416. The monastery was suppressed in 1539 and presented to Roger Bassinge.

Post Dissolution

A house called Abbey House was built on the site in the late 16th century, remodelled in the 1780s, and then demolished in 1964 to be replaced by a block of flats. The area that contained the nucleus of the monastery is now a public park, and only the Norman Arch, an original gateway to the abbey, and parts of the precinct wall remain above ground.

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone
They paved paradise and put up a block of flats

The standing remains of the abbey include part of the church and claustral buildings, as well as a watermill; the pulpitum screen with part of the stalls can now be seen in Aysgarth Church. The lordship of East Witton, with the site of the abbey, was granted by Henry VIII to Matthew Stuart, 4th Earl of Lennox, and Margaret, his wife, the king's niece, and after passing through various hands, the property came into the possession of the Bruce family, one of whom was created Earl of Ailesbury in 1805. The estate was purchased from the trustees of Ernest Brudenell-Bruce, 3rd Marquess of Ailesbury, in 1887, by S. Cunliffe Lister, Esq. of Swinton Park, for £310,000.[8] It was purchased by its present owners in 1971.

The last Abbot of Dale Abbey, John Bebe, died in 1540.

Sir Francis Pole of Radbourne took possession of Dale Abbey. The furnishings and fittings were either gradually sold off or stripped out and installed in other churches. Morley Church became home to some of the stained and painted glass, floor tiles and an entire porchway. The ornately carved font cover was installed in Radbourne Church while Chaddesden received a window frame. The font eventually found its way back to All Saints Church Dale Abbey in 1884 and the slabs upon which the canons walked for so many centuries can be found in the grounds of the church at the Moravian Settlement at Ockbrook.

Dale Abbey is recorded as the site of the "Wedding of Allan-A-Dale", the third of the stories of Robin Hood.

The Church of All Saints, at just 26 by 25 feet, is probably one of the smallest in the country. It shares a roof with an adjoining farmhouse. Dating from the mid-12th century, it was altered in 1480. It contains a pulpit from 1634. The adjoining farmhouse may have been used as an infirmary for the Abbey. For some time before 1820 it was used as a pub called the Blue Bell, the bar being used as a vestry, with a door into the aisle. It was rebuilt in 1883. '...it is said the village inn was anciently under the same roof, and there was a door in the wall leading from the gallery into the house, through which the worshippers were accustomed to steal to refresh themselves.'[2] 'The clergyman used to dress in the bar of the Blue Bell inn and enter the church through a now-blocked door'[3]

Behind the church is an area of woodland. In the wood is Hermit Cave, hewn out of the sandstone cliff by a 12th-century Derby baker who wished to live a life as a recluse. It is well preserved, measuring 6 yards by 3 with a doorway, two windows, a peephole and a niche for a light.

The Carpenters' Arms opened in 1880 and the Methodist Chapel opened in 1902.

Here is a (far from complete) list in which if you click on the name of the foundation you can find out what befell it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mo ... of_England

That's about 125 monasteries!

I never knew there were so many of them!

British archaeologists say a skeleton found under a city centre car park in central England could be that of the medieval king Richard III.

Researchers from the University of Leicester said they had found a male skeleton with similarities to historical descriptions of Richard, who ruled England between 1483 and his death in battle in 1485.

The remains, which are well preserved, are undergoing DNA analysis.

The team, which has been excavating a car park in the city of Leicester for three weeks, said the skeleton had an arrow-head embedded in its back and had received blows to the skull consistent with injuries received in battle.

Today, Richard III is best known as the hunchbacked villain of the eponymous play by William Shakespeare - and while the skeleton is not that of a hunchback, it does have a curved spine.

"This would have made his right shoulder appear visibly higher than the left shoulder," Mr Taylor said.

"This is consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard's appearance."

They will use DNA from 55-year-old furniture-maker Michael Ibsen, a direct descendant of Richard's eldest sister, Anne of York, to try to get a match.

Polydore Vergil and Thomas More expanded on this portrayal, emphasising Richard's outward physical deformities as a sign of his inwardly twisted mind. More describes him as "little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed...hard-favoured of visage."[31] Vergil also says he was "deformed of body...one shoulder higher than the right".[31] Both emphasise that Richard was devious and flattering, while planning the downfall of both his enemies and supposed friends. Richard's good qualities were his cleverness and bravery. All these characteristics are repeated by Shakespeare, who also adds to Richard's deformity to include a hunch, a limp and a withered arm.[32]

Richard's reputation as a promoter of legal fairness persisted, however. William Camden in his Remains Concerning Britain (1605) states that Richard, "albeit he lived wickedly, made good laws".

BTW, are you able to detail which monasteries were corrupt and to specify what that corruption entailed?

But I also know that there was no real outcry when the Monasteries were disolved...

The blood of the martyrs proves otherwise.

Leslee,

Buying back that which has been stolen from one: there really ought to be a word for that.

James


Apologies for taking so long to comment on this, but domestic circumstances restrict my time on the internet.

With the exception of John Fisher and Thomas Moore, I think you will find that the "40 English Martyrs" canonised around 1970, were the result of that great and glorious regime of Elizabeth I. Some years after Henry VIIIs dissolution of the Monasteries.

Marie

Not all unhappy endings!

Look at this

http://www.thefriars.org.uk/history.htm

After seeing "Compass" last Sunday it makes one wonder if it all accounts for little.

If you managed to sit through all of it your stomach is stronger than mine. I caught about three minutes.

British archaelogists hunting for the lost remains of King Richard III have revealed the first image of a battle-scarred skull found under a car park, ahead of what they say will be a "major announcement" about their findings.

"Who Killed the Princes in the Tower?" I got 95 or 100% for my wonderful answer "We don't know.

From the early 1570s onwards Byrd became increasingly involved with Catholicism, which, as the scholarship of the last half-century has demonstrated, became a major factor in his personal and creative life. As John Harley has shown, it is probable that Byrd's parental family were Protestants, though whether by deeply-felt conviction or nominal conformism is not clear. Byrd himself may have held Protestant beliefs in his youth, for a recently discovered fragment of a setting of an English translation of Luther's hymn Erhalt uns, Herr, bei Deinem Wort, which bears an attribution to 'Birde' includes the line 'From Turk and Pope defend us Lord'.[7] However, from the 1570s onwards he is found associating with known Catholics, including Lord Thomas Paget, to whom he wrote a petitionary letter on behalf of an unnamed friend in 1573. Byrd's wife Julian was first cited for recusancy (refusing to attend Anglican services) at Harlington in Middlesex, where the family now lived, in 1577. Byrd himself appears in the recusancy lists from 1584.

His involvement with Catholicism took on a new dimension in the 1580s. Following Pius V's Papal Bull of 1570, which absolved Elizabeth's subjects from allegiance to her and effectively made her an outlaw in the eyes of the Catholic Church, Catholicism became increasingly identified with sedition in the eyes of the Tudor authorities. With the influx of missionary priests trained in the English Colleges in Douai and Rome from the 1570s onwards relations between the authorities and the Catholic community took a further turn for the worse. Byrd himself is found in the company of prominent Catholics. In 1583 he got into serious trouble because of his association with Lord Thomas Paget, who was suspected of involvement in the Throckmorton Plot, and for sending money to Catholics abroad. As a result of this Byrd's membership of the Chapel Royal was suspended for a time, restrictions were placed on his movements and his house was placed on the search list. In 1586 he attended a gathering at a country house in the company of Father Henry Garnett (later executed for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot) and the Catholic poet Robert Southwell.

Byrd's commitment to the Catholic cause found expression in his motets, of which he composed about 50 between 1575 and 1591. While the texts of the motets included by Byrd and Tallis in the 1575 Cantiones have a High Anglican doctrinal tone, scholars such as Joseph Kerman have detected a profound change of direction in the texts which Byrd set in the motets of the 1580s. In particular there is a persistent emphasis on themes such as the persecution of the chosen people (Domine praestolamur a5) the Babylonian or Egyptian captivity (Domine tu iurasti) and the long-awaited coming of deliverance (Laetentur caeli, Circumspice Jerusalem). This has led scholars from Kerman onwards to believe that Byrd was reinterpreting biblical and liturgical texts in a contemporary context and writing laments and petitions on behalf of the persecuted Catholic community, which seems to have adopted Byrd as a kind of 'house' composer. Some texts should probably be interpreted as warnings against spies (Vigilate, nescitis enim) or lying tongues (Quis est homo) or celebration of the memory of martyred priests (O quam gloriosum). Byrd's setting of the first four verses of Psalm 78 (Deus venerunt gentes) is widely believed to refer to the cruel execution of Fr Edmund Campion in 1581 an event that caused widespread revulsion on the Continent as well as in England. Finally, and perhaps most remarkably, Byrd's Quomodo cantabimus is the result of a motet exchange between Byrd and Philippe de Monte, who was director of music to the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, in Prague. In 1583 De Monte sent Byrd his setting of verses 1–4 of Psalm 136 (Super flumina Babylonis), including the pointed question ’How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?’ Byrd replied the following year with a setting of the defiant continuation, set, like de Monte's piece, in eight parts and incorporating a three-part canon by inversion.

Richard, killed in battle in 1485, will be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral.

Dr Jo Appleby, an osteo-archaeologist from the university's School of Archaeology and Ancient History, revealed the bones were of a man in his late 20s or early 30s. Richard was 32 when he died.

His skeleton had suffered 10 injuries, including eight to the skull, at around the time of death. Two of the skull wounds were potentially fatal.

One was a "slice" removing a flap of bone, the other was caused by bladed weapon which went through and hit the opposite side of the skull - a depth of more than 10cm (4ins).

Dr Appleby said: "Both of these injuries would have caused an almost instant loss of consciousness and death would have followed quickly afterwards.

"In the case of the larger wound, if the blade had penetrated 7cm into the brain, which we cannot determine from the bones, death would have been instantaneous."

Other wounds included slashes or stabs to the face and the side of the head. There was also evidence of "humiliation" injuries, including a pelvic wound likely to have been caused by an upward thrust of a weapon, through the buttock.

Richard III was portrayed as deformed by some Tudor historians and indeed the skeleton's spine is badly curved, a condition known as scoliosis.

However, there was no trace of a withered arm or other abnormalities described in the more extreme characterisations of the king.

...

When all is said and done, I still think Richard III is the victim of being on the losing side. On the other hand, English Monarchs could not have claimed the title "Defender of the Faith".To quote the film The King and I, "It's a puzzlement"

Peter

"Defender of the Faith" has been one of the subsidiary titles of the English and later British monarchs since it was granted on October 11, 1521, by Pope Leo X to King Henry VIII of England. His wife Catherine of Aragon was also a Defender of the Faith in her own right. The title was conferred in recognition of Henry's book Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (Defence of the Seven Sacraments), which defended the sacramental nature of marriage and the supremacy of the Pope. This was also known as the "Henrician Affirmation" and was seen as an important opposition to the early stages of the Protestant Reformation, especially the ideas of Martin Luther.

In her capacity as queen of the United Kingdom, Elizabeth II is styled, "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith". The title "Defender of the Faith" reflects the Sovereign's position as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, who is thus formally superior to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The original Latin phrase - Fidei Defensor - is referred to on all current British coins by the abbreviations, F D or FID DEF. This reference was first added to British coins in 1714, during the reign of King George I. The decision of the Royal Mint to omit reference to the phrase (and other parts of the monarch's style) from the pre-decimal British so called "Godless Florin" in 1849, caused such a scandal that the coin was replaced.[3]

In most Commonwealth Realms the phrase does not appear in the Monarch's full style, while maintaining the initial By the Grace of God. For example, in Australia Queen Elizabeth is presently styled, "...by the Grace of God, Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth"). She is only styled "Defender of the Faith" in Canada, New Zealand and the UK.

Whenever I visit England I find myself deeply saddened by the detritus of the reformation. The lack of reparation for the catastrophic and far reaching rape and pillage and murder (both literal and figurative) of the Church strikes me as an on-going deep wound in the national identity of England.

Campaigners from both York and Leicester have said the king's remains ought to come to them, but under the terms of the exhumation licence, Leicester is likely to win the battle.

Speaking in the House of Commons the Justice Secretary Chris Grayling confirmed that the remains would be buried at Leicester Cathedral.

Few details of a reburial ceremony have been announced but David Montieth, Leicester Cathedral canon chancellor, said the remains would be re-interred early next year in a Christian-led but ecumenical service.

I find myself deeply saddened by the detritus of the reformation.

York Minster has rejected calls for the recently discovered remains of King Richard III to be buried there.

More than 11,000 people have signed a petition calling for him to be reinterred in York instead of Leicester.

But York Minster said it "commends Richard to Leicester's care".