Simon Knott

3/3 The Royal Arms of Mary Queen of Scots on Sheffield City Hall. Before Fotheringhay, Mary was imprisoned successively in a number of houses owned by George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewbury, including Sheffield Castle and Sheffield Manor Lodge, as well as several properties just outside of Sheffield.

2/2 some legal technicalities, although ironically the situation would be cloudier if her remains HAD been moved to the Abbey. There is no doubt that people make pilgrimages to Katherine's tomb, and leave votive offerings.

It will be interesting if the Diocese of East Anglia ever begins a process of promoting the cause of Katherine's sainthood, as has been occasionally discussed in recent years. Being buried in what is now a protestant cathedral would not necessarily be an impediment, but it might require 🧵1/2

2/3 Mary was forced to abdicate, and just seven months after his Catholic baptism James was crowned King of Scotland in the nearby Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling. The ceremony was conducted by the Protestant reformer John Knox, a mark of the pace of religious change in Scotland at this time.

Mary became Queen of Scotland in 1542, at the age of six days. The Chapel Royal in Stirling Castle stands on the site of an earlier Catholic chapel where in 1566 her son James was baptised. As King of Scotland he would oversee its replacement by the current chapel fitted for Protestant worship. 1/3

3/3 'Former burial place of Mary Queen of Scots'

After her execution, Mary's body was buried in Peterborough Cathedral, the spot marked by this memorial on the south side of the crossing. In 1612 she was disinterred and reburied in Westminster Abbey by order of her son, now King of England.

2/3 Fotheringhay church, Northamptonshire, across the River Nene. The castle where Mary was executed was out of shot to the right, but it fell into disrepair and was demolished during the reign of Mary's son James VI/I.

'The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots' by Robert Herdman, 1867 in Kelvingrove At Gallery, Glasgow.

She was beheaded #OTD 8 February 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire. The execution was reportedly a messy one, several strokes being required to remove her head. 1/3

Especially atmospheric after dark in my experience.

I think the 21st Century glass in the Cathedral is terrific. It's transformed the feel of the place compared with how I first knew it, especially that up in the Blessed Sacrament chapel.

Trouble is there's not a huge amount of meat on the bones and unless you cook it properly it can be sinewy and tough. My dad used to eat the liver, which I tried recently and it has an overpoweringly intense taste, presumably derived from the green matter the creature has eaten. Once was enough!

3/3 '...that I may tell you what is for the moment the newest and sweetest thing in pinnacles. Now, pardon me for telling you frankly, you cannot have good architecture simply by asking people's good advice on occasion. All good architecture is the expression of national life and character.'

2/3 You are going to spend £30,000 which to you is nothing but you think you may as well have the right thing for your money. You know there are a great many styles of architecture about; you don't want anything too ridiculous; you hear of me and send for me, that I may tell you the latest fashion.'

1/3 Ruskin wasn't a fan of Bradford's Wool Exchange (now a Waterstones bookshop):

'My good Yorkshire friends, you have asked me here that I may talk to you about this Exchange you're going to build; but most simply and sorrowfully I have to tell you that I do not care about it, because you don't.'

Ah, yes! I believe rabbit meat is having a trendy moment, though we ate it so often when I was younger that I find it hard to get excited. Cheap and nutritious though, if a bit tough. Wild rabbit tastes very different to the stuff you can buy in some supermarkets that's been farmed in China.

Great photo, Cam. Could have been one of my uncles 40 years ago, always off rabbiting with ferrets, though in the Fens rather than Norfolk.

All Saints, Margaret Street, London.

'It is the first piece of architecture I have seen, built in modern days, which is free from all signs of timidity or incapacity. Having done this, we may do anything: there need be no limits to our hope or our confidence.' - John Ruskin, born #OTD 8 Feb 1819.

I believe it was the favourite Dickens novel of both James Joyce and TS Eliot. The working title of Eliot's 'The Waste Land' was 'He Do The Police In Different Voices'.

Yes, Bleak House would be my runner-up. Little Dorrit not far behind, with Dombey & Son. Not so bothered about Hard Times, feels a little like a pot boiler to me but it would be a dull world if we all agreed about everything!

As with Dickens himself, my favourite of his novels is 'David Copperfield', but I do think his masterpiece is 'Our Mutual Friend'. Blimey, what a book.

It's a little jewel. In the care of the CCT, open all the time.

Thanks, Kieron. A bit of a luxury us having Cawston and Salle so close together, both in my Norfolk Top Ten, and also Little Witchingham, which is nearby, is just outside it!

4/4 Perhaps a kinder portrait of his father is Bob Cratchit in Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', another poorly paid clerk struggling to look after a growing family. The rent book is on display in the Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth.

3/4 ...and the family left the house soon after Charles's birth for cheaper lodgings elsewhere in Portsmouth. Dickens based the character of Mr Micawber in 'David Copperfield' on his father, who similarly lived perilously on the edge of debt. John Dickens, of course, ended up in a debtors prison...

2/4 Charles' father John Dickens was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, and his salary was well below that required to run a house on this scale, with one or possibly two servants. John Dickens had pretensions towards middle class respectability, but the arrears accumulated...

The rent book for Mile End Terrace for the quarters ending in March and June 1811. The Dickens family, towards the bottom for both quarters, are appended in red to show their debt. Charles Dickens was born in the house #OTD 7 February 1812, but the family left soon after.
@portaspeciosa.bsky.social

3/3 Little Paul, Little Nell, Little Dorrit, Oliver Twist, Pip, David Copperfield... Dickens grieved for his own childhood.

Mr Dombey is not appalling perhaps, but he's the least sympathetic of Dickens's title characters.

📷Victorian Web. Frontispiece of 'Dombey and Son', Household Edition, 1877.

2/2 The description in 'Dombey and Son' of Little Paul's baptism brings to life what many urban churches must have been like in the early 19th Century, and the ceremony itself too, before the Victorian Anglican revival swept it all away.

I'll post an image of the rent book at the time the family lived there later today. Single figure amounts of pounds, but the Dickens family still fell behind.

'Never from the mighty sea may voices rise too late to come between us and the unseen region on the other shore! Better, far better, that they whispered of that region in our childish ears and the swift river hurried us away.'

The end of 'Dombey & Son', Charles Dickens, born #OTD 7 February 1812.