The Wrong Side of History

Oxburgh Castle was completed in 1482 for Sir Edmund Bedingfield, and the family have lived here ever since surviving civil war, periods of near dereliction, and, in the C20th, the threat of demolition. The Bedingfields are an object lesson in loyalty and on being on the wrong side of history, but throughout imbued with the will to survive. 

Lovely Tudor brickwork and you can see where there have been repairs and modifications.

And in the woods, 

their own private chapel

In 1951, the end appeared nigh when, with mounting debts and taxation, the house was sold to The Eagle Star Insurance Company, which planned to resell house and estate in lots.

 Lot one, the house and gardens, attracted the interest of a developer who planned on knocking it all down, salvaging the oak in the roof and surrounding trees and demolishing the beautiful Tudor brickwork for use as hardcore. The house’s contents had already been sold. Prompted by an uneasy Eagle Star, Lady Sybil Bedingfield, her daughter, Frances, and a niece scraped the money between them to buy it back again, intact but without fixtures and furnishings. Somehow, scraping more money for its upkeep, they persuaded the National Trust to take it on and replace what they could of its former furnishings.

Ornate hearth with portrait of Sir Henry Bedingfield who somehow kept his head.

Having sold everything, and with nowhere else to live, the family were allowed to inhabit a wing, a far cry from their glory days.

Wonderful Jacobean carvings and two very weird children

The Bedingfields rose to prominence during the War of the Roses, when the victorious Yorkists rewarded them for their loyalty. Edward IV granted Edmund Bedingfield permission to build Oxburgh, and Richard III knighted him. 

After Richard’s defeat at the battle of Bosworth, Sir Edmund switched sides, supporting the new Tudor dynasty. He hosted Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York, and the king’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. At this point, they were on the ‘right side of history.’

Edmund’s third son, Sir Edmund Bedingfield 1480–53, had fought for Henry VIII in France, and after the king’s divorce, Catherine of Aragon was placed in Sir Edmund Bedingfield’s care. Similarly, Edmund’s son, Sir Henry, offered loyal support to the new protestant boy king, Edward VI, and in 1549 helped suppress a rebellion against the enclosure of common land. Up until this point Bedingfield loyalty to the reigning monarch had been both astute and pragmatic. 

Then events took their course. When the Catholic Mary Tudor ascended the throne, Sir Henry’s loyalty to the reigning monarch proved disastrous, largely because of Mary’s short reign 1553-1558. He suppressed a rebellion against her, was placed third in command of royal forces, and became the effective gaoler of the Queen’s half-sister, the future Elizabeth I. This was peak Bedingfield, Sir Henry achieving the giddy heights of Lieutenant of the Tower of London. 

How the mighty fell. Elizabeth had a long memory, and when she came to the throne, Sir Henry lost favour, was removed from the court and lost his position as Lieutenant of the Tower of London. Though still referred to in letters as her ‘trusty friend,’ Sir Henry retired to Oxburgh in disgrace—made worse when he refused to sign the Act of Uniformity, a key pointer of loyalty to the new regime. Like many  old Catholic families, the Bedingfields resorted to building a 'priest hole' to hide visiting priests from the authorities. The first link is brisk and informative. This link is more atmospheric and with some lovely music

From this time on the Bedingfields were linked with Catholicism, and after Elizabeth’s death, the new Stuart dynasty. From now on it became very much a game of Snakes and Ladders. They prospered during the reign of Charles I—then the Civil War ruined them. Oxburgh was ransacked and partially destroyed by the Roundheads.

At the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, the Bedingfields miraculously escaped when out of 18,000 Royalist troops, 4,000 were killed and 1,500 were taken prisoner in just two hours. The painting shows the crowned Virgin Mary sheltering Sir Henry and Lady Margaret Bedingfield and their family beneath her blue cloak.

It was all change again after the Restoration, when Charles II became king. He awarded the new Sir Henry Bedingfield a Baronetcy—which cost nothing—and failed to compensate the family for all they had lost. Things became worse after the Stuarts were driven from England. Under successive Protestant regimes, to be a Catholic was akin to being a jihadist today—in this case with some justification. For much of the C18th the family remained firm Jacobites, funding rebellion and secretly plotting to overthrow the Protestant Hanoverians. 

Those who supported James III would raise a toast to the king while passing their special drinking glass over a bowl of water to symbolise the king in exile in France. The glass is engraved with secret symbols of their loyalty. The rose and twin buds represent the 'Old Pretender' and his son, Bonnie Prince Charlie. Fiat means 'let it come to pass.' The oak leaf was a Stuart symbol from the Restoration. 

  The family was on the edge of ruin. Eventually, Oxburgh was leased, whilst the Bedingfields lived abroad. The castle was used for hunting parties, even leased out to a fashionable Bond Street hatter, and fell into disrepair. 

In the C19th it enjoyed one final flare of glory. The Sixth Baronet, Sir Henry Bedingfield, married Margaret Paston, the last in line of a rich and ancient Norfolk family. Her wealth transformed the Bedingfields, and Oxburgh was restored to all its former glory—until 1951 where this story begins but not necessarily ends. 

The heir to the baronetcy is now a priest – one suspects a pleasant posting rather than a parish in Blackpool. There remains a younger son, the new heir and begs the question, where will the Bedingfield story end?