By Jim Linwood - https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10289518
Etheldreda (also known as Aethlthryth or Audrey) was an Anglo-Saxon princess born in Suffolk about 636 AD. Her father was Anna (a straightforward name but to our ears more puzzling) King of the East Angles.
It is to Audrey that we owe Ely Cathedral. After two political marriages she founded the first monastery on this site in 673 AD.
Etheldreda (can’t say Audrey. Puts me in mind of a soap character) had always wanted to be a nun. Her father had different ideas, marrying her off to Tondbert, a local chieftain. She did though acquire the island of Ely as a present from her new husband.
Two years later Tondbert died and like a dutiful daughter she married Ecgrith, the future king of Northumbria. According to historians, Etheldreda ‘preserved the glory of perfect virginity’ so it is hardly surprising that after twelve years of marriage, Ecgrith released her from her vows.
Free at last, she became a nun at Coldingham, where her aunt Ebbe was Abbess. In 673 she left Coldingham and journeyed south to Ely where she founded her own monastery –a double house—one for both nuns and monks.
Despite or because of a pious life of abstinence, wearing only rough woollen clothing, eating only once a day and praying throughout the night, she died six years later —679 AD—from a tumour in her neck, and was buried in a simple wooden coffin outside the Abbey. Her sister Seaxburga the widowed Queen of Kent, succeeded her as abbess.
Sixteen years after her death, Etheldreda’s body was moved into the Abbey and was found to be ‘incorrupt’ – interpreted as a sign of her holiness. More than that, the wound in her neck where the doctor had tried to excise the tumour had completely healed. From then on, her tomb became a focus for pilgrims and the site of many miracles.
Initially pilgrims were few because Ely pre conquest was an island and necessitated the hire of a boat. The rich though, were actively encouraged. Queen Emma, wife of Ethelred the Unready and then of his successor king Cnut, was an early benefactor, both she and Cnut taking the boat there in 1030.
After the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror built a road through the marshes, mainly to crush rebellions and subjugate the area.The road, of course, encouraged more pilgrims to visit.
Her tomb became even grander when the Abbey grew into a cathedral in 1109—and grander still in 1252 when the Cathedral was extended to allow more space for the hordes of new pilgrims.
And then came the Reformation and the even more malign Dean Goodrich. With malicious intent he destroyed the tomb so completely her body disappeared and hasn’t been found to this day. A simple stone marks the site of the original shrine.
Ely Cathedral, like all great cathedrals, has magnificent architecture and is awash with magical stained glass. But what initially piqued my interest was less the stonework but more the characters buried within. Stone is pretty enduring, so too is human nature which hasn't changed much over the years. Every one of these men are recognisable types, you could easily fit modern names to them. In this case however, their stories mirror a key period in English history and reveal scoundrels and saints, the vain, the good hearted. I’l leave you to decide who belongs to which category.
Bishop West’s Chantry
Nicholas West, Bishop of Ely 1515 – 1534
The young Nicholas West was apparently a wild one, but age sobered him. He became chaplain to Henry VII and later an important diplomatic envoy for Henry VIII. He truly was a prince of the church, living in ‘the greatest spleandour of any Prelate in his time.’ And yet he also fed ‘warm meat and drink to the excess of 200 people per day.' It was lucky he died when he did, because he was also an ardent supporter of Catherine of Aragon and would likely have been executed like Fisher and More, had he lived.
Dean Humphrey Tyndall Dean of Ely 1591 – 1614
Dean Tyndall was heir to the throne of Bohemia but refused the kingdom saying that he ‘would rather be Queen Elizabeth’s subject than a foreign prince.'
Good man!
His memorial agrees.
His presence, government, good actions and in birth,
Grave, wise, courageous, noble was this earth.
The poor, the Church, the college say here lies
A friend, a Dean, a master true, good and wise
Bishop Thomas Goodrich Bishop of Ely 1534 – 1554 Lord Chancellor of England.
Bishop Goodrich was a rabid reformer who published his intent in 1541: ‘… all images, relics, table monuments of miracles, shrines etc be so totally demolished and obliterated with all speed and diligence that no remains or memory of them might be found for the future.’ It is because of Goodrich that no trace of St Etheldreda remains, that so many figures in the niches were destroyed, and that the C14th and C15th stained glass windows were damaged.
When however, the Catholic Queen Mary ascended the throne, Thomas Goodrich had a revelation. He suddenly realised he was Catholic after all and so retained his Bishopric – though not the office of Lord Chancellor.
Sir Mark Steward, the cousin of Dean Robert Steward, and like him related to Elizabeth Steward, Oliver Cromwell’s mother. He was also touchingly vain. In keeping with his knighthood, he and his family boasted a genealogy to match. His monument suggests that they were not only of Scottish ancestry but members of the royal house of Stewart—which was a load of pleasing nonsense. The family name was Styward, meaning ‘keeper of the pig sties,’ and they came from Swaffham in Norfolk. It might have been embarrassing for Oliver Cromwell otherwise—beheading a relative.
Praying for his lost money.
Dean Henry Caesar Dean of Ely 1614 – 1636
Has an interestingfamily history He was noted for his charity and left a considerable sum of money for scholarships at Jesus College, Cambridge. Unfortunately, the money was subsequently lent to King Charles I at the start of the Civil War. He lost his head and Jesus College lost the money bequeathed by the Dean Henry Caesar of blessed memory.
Dark Fire was my first published book, and I couldn’t believe it. It began as a serious piece of speculative fiction based on reincarnation and Past Life Regression, exploring the linguistic patterns of Jacobean and early Eighteenth language. A hard sell, as you can imagine and rejected by every publisher it was sent to—until an American friend told me what it lacked. Sex. It needed sex. Sex sells, she said with some authority.
Bit of a rum do, but whatever. I pondered for a minute or two and then set to it, first by ploughing through some ‘hot romance.’ Testing the market only, I assure you.
Well, it all seemed straightforward enough and so, with some confidence, I inserted four or five stonking sex scenes. A week later it was accepted by an American publishing house Red Sage, which specialised in sex and spicy romance.
I learnt three lessons from the process—four if you count the obvious—sex sells.
First study your contract. In my case it gave Red Sage indefinite ownership of my story, not a good deal and I should have known better. The second lesson I learnt was that unless you’re a big-name author, by the time the publisher has taken its percentage, you actually earn very little. And finally, you have little say in the design of your cover.
They presented four options, which included a scantily dressed medieval woman in thigh length boots and a whip, I settled on a neutral stock photo and a friend added shadow and flames – the only input allowed.
It was after that I decided to go ‘Indie,’ where I continue to earn a modest amount but more than the traditionally published Dark Fire. In fact I forgot all about it.
The book, though has recently earned a new lease of life. Its original publisher ceased operations, and all rights were returned to the author.
And this is where my daughter, a brilliant but ruthless stand-up comedian, Frances Keyton, got involved. She first pretended shock that her father had written a ‘dirty book,’ and then proceeded to capitalise on the fact, pressurising me to re-release it, so she could use it as part of her act.
All publicity is good publicity, right? Hmm, the jury’s still out, but I live in hope, a cult figure on the comedy circuit? All I know it’s selling again—for the sex or Bunyanesque prose? Who knows.
Major Thomas Mitford of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, died in Burma on Good Friday 30th March 1945—six months before the war ended. On the 24th March, he led a small force against a Japanese machine gun nest, where he was hit in the shoulder and neck. Forty-eight hours later he was operated on in the field hospital, where a bullet was found lodged in his spine, and so he was airlifted to the better equipped company headquarters in Sagang. Unfortunately complications set in, and he died of pneumonia. He was thirty six years old.
The joy in reading Tom Mitford: A Fearful Old Twisteris how Will Cross snuffles out the obscurest of facts and places the spotlight on the largely unknown. Most people have heard of the Mitford sisters: the Hitler loving Unity, Diana -wife of Oswald Mosley, communist Jessica who settled in America, Pam who wanted to be a farmer’s wife and eventually found happiness with a woman, Debs, who became the Duchess of Devonshire, and perhaps most famous of all, the writer Nancy Mitford, who immortalised the family in The Pursuit of Love.
The young lord and lady Redesdale 'Muv' and 'Farve'
Will Cross makes a convincing argument, that none of these prickly, highly idiosyncratic women would have been so loving or driven had it not been for the now largely forgotten brother, Tom Mitford. He was the golden boy, heir to the dynasty. He had the education, his sisters each other, two eccentric parents and various governesses who flitted in and out of their lives. Tom became the focal point of intense love, irritation, perhaps even resentment from the less favoured sisters who fought to carve out their own destinies; Tom being the catalyst. The sisters had only marriage to look forward to, happy if they were lucky. And they were more than aware of Tom’s advantages, his considerable gifts and equally great failings.Unlike Tom, they couldn’t brandish a penis and boast what he had, and they hadn’t.
And in fairness, he used it. Sexual gratification became a driving force, and his conquests were many with both sexes. Few could resist him, for he was both good looking and could sweet talk his way in and out of most situations. Beneath the charm, though, was a certain coldness, a misogyny he probably picked up at Eton, where masturbation, buggery and beatings were the norm.
On the surface, Tom survived it unscathed. His beauty and charm made him a favoured one. ‘There was usually a line up for second or even third use of Tom Mitford’s bathwater or to help him dry.’ But by this time, Tom had discovered women.
Baba d’Erlanger
At the age of eighteen he was willingly seduced by the twenty-four year old Baba d’Erlanger, Jewish, beautiful and already married. But Tom was also beautiful and needed relieving of his virginity. From that moment on there was no going back; no attractive woman was safe from his charm—nor he from wanton women and predatory men.
Doris Castlerosse
Doris Castlerosse, a dazzling blonde had had Winston Churchill as well as his son, Randolph. Tom Mitford had no chance, but he was far luckier than some of her later conquests. Her husband, Lord Valentine Castlerosse was a violently jealous man and had a reputation for tracking down his wife’s lovers and beating them to pulp.
A blog post isn’t the place for an exhaustive list of Tom Mitford’s conquests or how he navigated between the advances of Lytton Strachey, Harold Nichelson, Tom Driberg et al. I would though suggest looking up the great love of his life, the beautiful Austrian Jewish adventuress, Tilly Losch, actress and dancer. Their romance was obsessive, passionate and destructive; it showed Tom Mitford at his best, his most vulnerable and at his worst.
Will Cross also illustrates how difficult it is to pin Tom Mitford down. Some of the great loves of his life were Jews. At the same time, he admired Hitler, though not as obsessively as sisters Unity and Diana.
He spoke flawless German and as a young man had spent some of the happiest years of his life in Austria. There were many in the upper echelons of British society who had similar feelings, seeing Hitler’s Germany as a bulwark against Bolshevism.
At the height of the war, August 1944, Tom Mitford was asked point blank by one of his oldest friends and unrequited lover, James Lee Milne, whether he still sympathised with the Nazis. “ He emphatically said yes. That all the best Germans were Nazis. That if he were a German, he would be one. That he was an imperialist. He considered that life without power and without might with which to strike fear into every other nation would not be worth living for an Englishman. I absolutely contradicted him. Told him I was an unrepentant pacifist, and would prefer to live in a country of tenth rate power, provided there were peace and freedom of action and speech. The sweet side of Tom is that he never minds how much an old friend disagrees with him. But woe betide an acquaintance."
12th Nov 1944 “Had a glass of sherry at Brooke’s with Tom, who walked in. He tells me he is off soon to Burma at his own request, for he does not wish to go to Germany killing German civilians, whom he likes. He prefers to kill Japanese whom he does not like.”
Before the war and pressured by Unity and Diana, Muv and Farve found themselves gravitating towards Hitler’s immediate circle. Farve was initially hesitant and retained a degree of ambivalence; he never totally forgave ‘the Boche’ for killing his brother in World War I. Muv too was initially cool but allowed that Hitler 'had a nice face.' Gradually, under the influence of her daughters and Hitler’s magnetism, she fell completely under his spell. ‘Never mind, when the Germans have won the war, everything will be wonderful.’
Lord and Lady Redesdale 'Muv' and 'Farve.'
The American journalist, Virginia Cowes recorded Muv and Farve at the Grand Hotel in Nuremberg. 'Lord and Lady Redesdale seemed out of place. Lady Redesdale always seemed to be sitting over her needlework in the corner of the lounge, while Lord Redesdale helped her find her needles or wandered around with a bewildered air as though he were at a rather awkward house party where (curiously enough) nobody could speak English. '
As Farve became increasingly disenchanted and Muv more enamoured, their marriage gradually fell apart, Farve eventually settling on a Scottish island with his parlour maid, Margaret Wright.
Will Cross’s book provides a wonderful insight into a world of bedhopping, cross-dressing and drugs. It reminds us that that human nature doesn’t change to any significant degree and that the crusty old men who dominated politics and society, the men who harrumphed most loudly as the swinging sixties progressed, had their own peculiar pasts. It would have been nice to have seen how Tom Mitford might have fared had a sniper’s bullet not cut him down.
*As in all of Will Cross's books, A Fearful Old Twister has footnotes galore - nearly a thousand, which with the help of Google is a rabbit hole of hidden treasures.
* I would though like to know what happened to Dinky
Bilocation or perhaps astral projection is a tricky one. I use the latter a lot in my various books, but for real? The problem ultimately is verification. Francesco di Paola was known for his holiness and his powers of bilocation that were apparently witnessed, once being seen working in the friary kitchen and serving mass at the same time. Another account records how he was seen praying ecstatically in the chapel and at the same time talking to people in the street just outside the friary.To be seen by the same witnesses in two different places is very rare.
St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, translocated 870 miles from Rome to Cologne in order to tell Leonard Kessel, rector of the Jesuit community there, to stay where he was instead of returning to Rome.
Sister Maria de Agueda might also have been familiar with St Francis Xavier, who bi-located so often it’s likely the stories might have been exaggerated to fast track his elevation to sainthood. The most spectacular example did at least have witnesses. It involved him bi-locating from his ship on a storm-tossed sea and shepherding sailors from a dhow in danger of drowning to the safety of his own vessel. Two of the sailors were Muslim and converted to Christianity as a result.
St Teresa of Avila was also known to bilocate. Ana de San Agustin, a Carmelite nun at Malagon testified that she was awakened one night by Teresa who told her to go to the Chapel and relight the Sanctuary light near the tabernacle, which must always be lit. When she entered the chapel, Teresa was already there waiting for her, but vanished as soon as the lamp was lit. It was then that Ana realised Teresa was at Avila, about 145 miles away.
The Jesuit, Gaspar de Salazar, recorded how Teresa once appeared in his locked room to advise and comfort him, even though she was ‘many leagues away.’ Later, when Salazar had the chance to ask Teresa in person about this visit, she said ‘in humble modesty’ that God had indeed sent her to help him.
Nuns seemed peculiarly prone to bilocation. Juana de Jesus Maria, a Carmelite from Burgos claimed to have visited Turkey, Brazil and the Philippines, even north America where Indians fired arrows at her. The Inquisition were not convinced and banned all books written about her. Martina de Los Angelos claimed to have killed the Lutheran Swedish king Gustav Adolphus ‘with her own hand’ at the battle of Lutzen in 1632 and, not to be beaten, Antonia Jacinta de Navarra claimed to have fought the Turks alongside Christian soldiers.
Our friend, the levitating Maria de Agueda, also bilocated in her spare time and gave rise to the legend of the Lady in Blue. During her catatonic raptures she apparently visited New Mexico and was able to describe in detail the landscape, topography, and characteristics of the Jumano Indians. Imbued by a desire to save their souls she began preaching, telling them about Jesus along with the bare bones of the New Testament. This may be seen as harmless fantasy but for the fact that around the same time Jumano Indians who traded with the Spanish Missions suddenly began demanding to be baptised, much to the amazement of the resident friars.
These friars hadn’t yet penetrated the wilderness. How had the Jumanos learnt the sign of the cross and knew that Jesus was the Son of God? On being questioned, the Jumanos talked of ‘A Lady in Blue’ who regularly visited, and thus a legend was born. It’s a lovely story, but inconclusive. Unlike the more modest examples of bilocation, where witnesses could more easily observe the subject being in two places at the same time, this was impossible to verify when such vast distances were involved.
To compound this, in middle age and under considerable pressure from doubtful inquisitors, Maria later qualified her story, suggesting that as a naïve young nun she had too easily acquiesced in what her superiors wanted to hear. Equally it might be argued the now middle-aged nun, all too aware of the consequences should she not be believed thought it politic to distance herself from the stories and shift the blame on to others.
Not to be left out, the other levitating nun Sister Luisa de la Ascension shared similar powers, apparently attending the deathbed of the Spanish king without leaving the convent. In 1615 she comforted a martyr in Japan, and then whizzed off to Rome to save Pope Gregory XV from poison. She visited Assisi to pray at the tomb of St Francis, a battlefield in Flanders to cheer on Catholic soldiers fighting Protestants, and then on to the battle of White Mountain near Prague, where she ensured victory against a Protestant army.
Luisa quickly became a cult figure, a living saint, attracting followers across Europe. including King Philip III of Spain. Anything belonging to her or that her holy hand had touched was deemed sacred and in huge demand across the Catholic world at a price. It is understandable why the Inquisition spent so much energy in separating the genuine and inexplicable from charlatans and the deluded.
I love the name: levitators. I’m put in mind of ascetic nuns in flying helmets and goggles, and you certainly couldn’t get much more ascetic than Sister Maria de Agueda (the legendary Blue Nun) and Sister Luisa de la Ascension better known as the Nun of Carrion—Chuckles to her friends.
Sister Maria fasted constantly, wore a hairshirt under her habit, along with a girdle studded with spiked rings and a vest of chain mail. To add to her misery she wrapped her body in chains and fetters, scourged herself daily and wore a crucifix riddled with spikes that she pressed into herself as she prayed. Cheerful little soul.
In 1620, aged 18, Sister Maria de Agueda experienced her first levitation. From then on, they continued almost daily, invariably after taking Communion when she would fall into a trance and rise into the air – this in full view of the entire convent.
“Her body was elevated a short distance above the ground; its natural heaviness so diminished, that it seemed weightless and could be blown around with just one puff of breath as if it were merely a leaf from a tree or light feather.”
Visitors came from afar to marvel; Maria, in her catatonic rapture oblivious to it all. She was prodded and poked and blown at. Worse, the window allowing ordinary villagers to communicate with the nuns was opened wide so that the world and its wife could witness the miracle. Poor old Maria was pushed right up to the window so that local peasants could poke, and pinch, and pry.
This lasted for three years, Maria knowing nothing of what was going on.
When Maria discovered what was happening – a local simpleton blurting out the fact—she tried to stop it. She avoided Communion and when ordered to do so, took it in private in her cell behind a locked door. Unfortunately, her fellow sisters found a way in and the practice continued, Maria in trance being oblivious. Eventually she collapsed in tears before a visiting Franciscan provincial and begged him to make it all stop. His solution was simple. Beg for God to make it stop. She’d already begged— many times—but on being ‘ordered’ to do so by her spiritual superior the prayer this time worked. Maria never levitated again – much to the dismay of her fellow nuns!
They responded quite viciously: God wouldn’t have stopped such a miracle— the levitations must have been diabolical—else she had committed a great but secret crime and God had punished her by ending the gift of levitation.
Sister Luisa de la Ascension also impressed her fellow nuns by extreme asceticism. She ate very little and took her food from the floor. Somewhere around 1595, she stopped eating all together apart from the daily Communion wafer. In addition, she scourged herself every day until the blood ran, wore tight rings around her neck, the almost obligatory hair shirt, and a metal spiked breastplate. Sometimes she would prostrate herself before a door and allow the other nuns to walk over her. At night she would lie on a life-sized wooden cross and drag it about on her knees during the day.
To add to her prowess as an ascetic, she claimed her piety attracted demons who attacked her daily, tearing her hair and tossing her about the room. So impressed were her fellow nuns, that she was asked to succour the dying. This was on the basis that her presence would distract predatory demons who would go for her instead of seizing the soul of the dying nun.
Her levitation skills were not as advanced as some, but Sister Luisa de la Ascension had another string to her bow—one she shared with Sister Maria and a select few, and which we’ll explore in the final episode next week.
On the 4th of October 1630, on the feast of St Francis, St Joseph of Cupertino suddenly rose from the ground and hovered ecstatically over his village witnessed by everyone there. It was the start of a series of events that made him the most spectacular levitator of his age or any other age.
From that moment on, his levitating became increasingly frequent, accompanied more often than not by ear-piercing shrieks. His fame spread, and peasants, nobles, and church dignitaries descended upon Cupertino to see their hero in action.
Certain things triggered him: the Mass—in particular the Consecration, the spoken name of Jesus or Mary, prayer, sacred music, the beauty of nature; any one of these things and off he would go, flying like a manic balloon. On one occasion, hearing a fellow friar speculate on how beautiful Heaven must be, Joseph emitted a loud whoop and flew to a nearby tree, resting on a branch too slender to hold all but a weightless body.
When in ecstatic trance and not on a tree, ie within arm’s reach, the curious would prod and prick him, press on his eyeballs, do just about anything to get a response; all to no avail. Joseph remained oblivious until the trance ended, and he again touched ground.
One such curious person was Luisa de Sandoval Padilla, the wife of Juan Alfonso Enrique de Cabrera, a member of Philip IV’s Royal Council. She begged for an audience with Joseph. Under pressure and most reluctantly, Joseph agreed, but on entering the church where she, her husband and their retinue awaited, his eyes lit upn a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. With a loud whoop, Joseph ascended, flying twelve feet over their heads. There he hovered in ecstasy, before flying back to the door of the church and out. Luisa Sandoval Padilla and her ladies fainted on the spot, and had to be revived with smelling salts.
Perhaps his most spectacular feat, amongst the many recorded, occurred in a more pastoral setting. On seeing a young lamb, Joseph froze, momentarily overcome. Confronted by a symbol of the Good Shepherd, Joseph responded in the only way possible. He picked the baby lamb up, ran around the garden with it on his shoulder, tossed it into the air, flew after it, caught it, and was found cuddling the lamb in bliss high on a nearby tree.
It didn’t have to be sheep. On hearing another friar praise the Virgin Mary, Joseph hurled himself upon him. Both screamed simultaneously as they rose in the air, one in blind terror, the other in ecstasy.
An ecstasy during Pentecost mass was so intense and powerful that Joseph flew up ‘quickly and impetuously, gyrating like a lightning bolt around the chapel, blasting out a very strange booming scream that shook the whole monastery with its vehemence.’
Most of his trances and levitations took place while celebrating Mass, which meant that his masses could last between two to five hours as he ascended, descended, hovered, flew, sometimes hurling himself backwards. On other occasions he ‘froze;’ his body and even his clothes stiff, inanimate, but all the time glowing.
There were eyewitness accounts of him venerating the veil of the Virgin Mary at Assisi. “He knelt in front of the precious relic, but on moving forward to kiss it, he jumped and flew backwards for eight long paces, and then he reversed that same flight to kiss it, after which he once again as before he flew back eight paces. Then he took to a new flight over the table where the reliquary was resting, and there he froze into a state of ecstasy, arms outstretched, his two hands positioned directly on the flames of two lighted torches.”
Not only could he levitate himself, as indicated earlier, he was able to levitate the unwilling. A notable madman, Baldasare Rossi was brought to him bound to a chair. Joseph grabbed him by the hair and both ascended high into the air accompanied by Joseph’s usual booming scream. When they descended Baldasare Rossi walked away cured.
The church was at a loss as to what to do with him for these dramatic and frightening levitations lasted for some 38 years.They were seen as disruptive, terrifying the faithful who at the same time flocked from every part of Italy and beyond to see him. At last Pope Urban VIII secluded Joseph in an obscure monastery, allowing him to worship in proper reverence and without the attendant circus show.
And yet, a greater mystery remains. How has such a notable figure slipped into such total obscurity? Why is he not the best known of saints? And what would have been the results of a union between him and Christina the Astonishing? A marriage made in Heaven.
