Marriages of the Prince of Wales have been rare events in English history. The current Prince Charles is only the sixth to marry whilst Prince of Wales since 1501. The last one was his great, great grandfather, Albert Edward, the future King Edward VII, in 1863. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had begun the search for a bride in 1858 since an early marriage would mean he would be able to have a son earlier to secure his reign. The bride was not allowed to be a Roman Catholic under the Act of Succession. Although the Queen and the Prince Albert were keen on finding a German match, they agreed to a marriage with Princess Alexandra Caroline, daughter of Prince Christian of Denmark, who was known to be very beautiful, charming and intelligent.

The marriage took place in ‘The King’s free chapel of St George’, Windsor Castle, on 10th March 1863. The marriage attestation deed was signed in the State Apartments of the Castle, rather than in the Chapel, as you can see in this print held in the St George’s Chapel Archives. The Chapel Archives also contain the official marriage register signed by numerous witnesses and other letters and documents connected with the wedding. These reveal the names of the important people from around the world who were invited to attend and even indicate where they were seated in the Chapel. The wedding was not open to members of the public but they were allowed to gather outside to greet the Royal couple.

Navid Khanzadeh (The Langley Academy)

Ladies were first admitted as full members of the Order of the Garter in 1987, almost 540 years after the founding of the Order. The 1987 Statute effecting this change first refers to an earlier statute of 1954, which states that the Order comprises the Sovereign and twenty-five Knights Companion and “certain others” (additional royal members and hereditary rulers of other states). The new Statute then adds:

And whereas We the Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter are desirous of evincing in a fitting manner Our abiding sense of the virtues and worth of Ladies of eminence known to Us by making such of them as We are pleased to choose and select to be Companions of Our said Most Noble Order Now therefore in order the better to effect Our said purpose and by virtue of the power inherent in Us as Sovereign of Our said   Most Noble Order We do ordain and declare that henceforth the Companions of Our said Most Noble Order shall be those of Our Subjects both Knights and Ladies as We or Our Successors are pleased to declare to be Knights Companions or Ladies Companions …

The Statute goes on to state that a female Companion of the Order will have the title “Lady” and the designation “L.G.” after her name.

Prior to 1987, female dignitaries could be admitted as ‘Ladies of the Garter’ In 1901, when King Edward VII revived the custom of appointing Ladies of the Garter and conferred the honour on Queen Alexandra, she was allocated a stall over which her banner was set up.  Nine other Ladies of the Garter followed, the most recent being the present Queen’s cousin, Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (2003). However, these Ladies were not true Companions of the Order and do not have stall plates affixed to the stalls they occupied in St George’s Chapel. In contrast, the three Ladies Companion admitted since the 1987 Statute – Lavinia, Duchess of Norfolk (1990), Baroness Thatcher (1995) and Lady Soames (2005) – all have stall plates in the Quire.

Jill Hume (Archives Volunteer)

“How happy will a Lady be,
To have a little Baronet, to dandle on her knee.” 

Eccentric. This is how Sir John Dineley is described in his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Looking at his background, it is perhaps not difficult to see why!

His father Samuel had had a falling out with his elder brother, third baronet, causing him to threaten Samuel with disinheritance. To prevent this from happening, Samuel arranged for his brother to be kidnapped and strangled, thus ensuring that he would inherit the title. However, the plan did not quite work out as planned; Samuel was arrested for fratricide and hanged for the crime on 15 April 1741. Sir John would have been around 12 years old.

In 1761, Sir John became the fifth baronet after the death of his elder brother Edward, who died aged only 32. John seems to have set about spending the family fortune, with the Gentleman’s Magazine describing him as “a man of eccentric character, who chose to dissipate the competent fortune which he inherited”. In 1770 he was forced to sell the family home at Burhope. Eventually, after years of living in destitution and through the intervention of his friends, he was offered the place of a Poor Knight of Windsor, being admitted on the 16 April 1798.

He became a well-known figure around the Castle of Windsor, on account of his dress and demeanour. Landless and penniless, he became renowned across the country for his desperate search for a wealthy wife to bring him the status he felt he deserved. Using the last of his savings to display himself to best effect at the places where ladies congregated, according to one writer in the Penny Magazine, “He had a wonderful discrimination in avoiding the twittering girls, with whose faces he was familiar. But perchance some buxom matron or timid maiden, who had seen him for the first time, gazed upon the apparition with surprise and curiosity. In that case he would approach. With the air of one bred in courts, he made his most profound bow, and, taking a piece of paper from his pocket, he presented it, and withdrew’ doubtless watching the effect it produced.”

In the Archives is a signed copy of one of these marriage advertisements from 1799 [SGC F.67], in which he asks ladies to consider marrying him. He specifies the sums he expects his wife to bring to the union, and these vary depending upon the age of the lady in question, with Sir John prepared to accept less money for a younger wife. In return for their money, his wife would be able to call themselves Lady.

Sadly, no-one took up his offer and he died aged 80, a bachelor still, on 18 October 1809. He was buried at St George’s Chapel and the baronetcy became extinct.

Eleanor Cracknell (Assistant Archivist)

Banners in the Quire, with the Chrysanthemum of Hirohito 3rd on the left, after its restoration in 1971

When Edward III founded the Order of the Garter, the oldest surviving order of chivalry in the world, in or about 1348, there is evidence to suggest that he originally intended it to comprise twenty-four Knights. However, by 1349/50 membership of the Order became fixed at twenty-six:  the Monarch and twenty-five Knights appointed by him as his Companions. This number remained unchanged until 1786, when King George III brought in a new category of ‘Supernumerary’ membership to enable his sons (he had nine) and those of his successors to be appointed Garter Knights in addition to the twenty-six.

Amongst the original Founder Knights were some who owed their allegiance to Edward as Lord of Gascony rather than as King of England. They became known as Stranger Knights, to distinguish them from the Subject Knights who were direct subjects of the English Crown. Over the years additional foreign magnates were appointed Stranger Knights in line with the growing prestige of the Order. Until 1813, they formed part of the Companionship of twenty-six. However, in that year George III, wishing to install Alexander I of Russia as an additional Garter Knight, declared that all Stranger Knights should be henceforth classed as Supernumerary.   Since no limit was set on the number of Supernumerary Knights appointed at any one time, George III and his successors could reward and honour as many overseas princes and rulers as they chose. Between 1435 and 2001 one hundred and four Stranger Knights were elected to the Order (whose total membership from 1348 to date has been one thousand and one).  Not all installations took place in person at St George’s Chapel – some were undertaken in England by proxy or were celebrated abroad in the presence of Garter officials.

Sadly Supernumeraries, and indeed any Knight or Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, may be degraded for various reasons. During the First World War, Monarchs of enemy nations, such as Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, had their membership revoked. One of four Japanese Stranger Knights, Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989) had his Garter banner removed from St Georges’ Chapel in 1941, when his allegiance was questioned after Japan joined the Second World War. However, it is also possible for Companions to be restored to the Order, and Emperor Hirohito welcomed his reinstatement by Elizabeth II and the restoration of his banner to the Chapel in 1971. The three other Japanese Stranger Knights elected to the Order of the Garter were Emperors Mutsuhito (installed in 1906 in recognition of the Anglo-Japanese alliance), Yoshihito (installed in 1912) and Akihito (in 1998).

Stefanos Koutroumanidis (Archives volunteer)

King Henry VI was born at Windsor on 6 December 1421 and succeeded to the throne at the age of nine months as King of England.   Henry was crowned 6 November 1429 at Westminster Abbey a month before his eighth birthday.  He was imprisoned and died in the Tower of London on 21 May 1471.   His body was taken to Chertsey Abbey for burial.

In the Treasurers’ accounts of the College of St George for 1483-84 an entry refers to the payment of £5 10s 2d ‘for expenses about the removal of King Henry VI from Chertsey’.   According to the contemporary account of John Rous, ‘the King’s body was taken out of his grave in the abbey church of Chertsey in August 1484, and honourably received in the new collegiate church of the Castle at Windsor where it was again buried with the greatest solemnity to the south of the high alter’.

The tomb of Henry VI became the object of veneration and the scene of miracles of healing attracted many pilgrims.  Miracles attributed to the King included those connected with one of his treasured relics – an old hat – the King’s Medicine against Headache.   Relics were kept at Windsor until the Reformation.  The metal collecting box for alms still stands beside the tomb.

On 4th November 1910 a formal investigation was made to establish exactly where King Henry’s body had been placed.   Within the second arch on the south side of the Quire, the marble step was removed and space opened.  The shrine appears to have been in the same area as the present slab which had been placed in the centre of the South Quire Aisle in 1790 and was moved to its present position in 1927.

Henry VI was not considered a successful king but rather a good and holy man widely regarded as a saint.   His one lasting achievement was in education, founding Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge.  At Windsor we commemorate his birthday with the ceremony of the Lilies and Roses.  Boys from Eton College attend an obit service together with representatives from Eton and King’s to lay lilies and roses on the tomb of Henry VI while special prayers are said.

“Let Thy blessing O Lord, be upon the Colleges of Thy servant King Henry VI and as Thou has appointed unto them diversities of gifts, grant then also the same spirit, so that they may together serve Thee to the welfare of Thy realm, the benefit of all men, and Thy Honour and Glory; through Jesus Christ Our Lord”.

Enid Davies (Assistant Archivist)

A new research guide has been added on the Guide to Holdings pages of our website. The latest in the series is on the Naval Knights of Windsor.

Set up to provide support to retired seamen, the institution was intended to operate along the lines of the already established Military Knights of Windsor. In 1799, land was purchased in Datchet Lane for the construction of living quarters for the Naval Knights, and Travers College was built.

However, by the 1860s it was clear that the ideal of devout men living in common was not being achieved. The records reveal many instances of fighting, drunkenness and profane language among the Naval Knights, along with their complaints about compulsory attendance in chapel and their enforced bachelorhood. In 1892, the institution was formally disbanded and the buildings became St George’s School.

Further information on the Naval Knights, including what records we hold, can be found in the new research guide.

Eleanor Cracknell (Assistant Archivist)

Monument to Field Marshall William Harcourt

Field Marshall William Harcourt (1743-1830) was a soldier who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Serving with the 16th Light Dragoons, Harcourt was scouting in enemy territory on the 13th December 1776, when he came across a messenger bearing a letter from General Lee to General Washington. This subsequently led to the capture of General Charles Lee, regarded as one of the most talented American military leaders, and Harcourt’s recognition as a national hero.

William Harcourt’s monument can now be seen in the North Quire Aisle of St George’s Chapel. It stands 76 inches high on a stone base, representing the Field Marshall in his Coronation robes. However, the figure, sculpted by Sievier in 1832, was originally intended for Stanton Harcourt Church in Oxfordshire, but was moved to its current location on the orders of the King after he took a liking to the ‘splendid statue’. Where the original statue was to be placed in the south transept of Stanton Harcourt, now stands a plaster model, identical to the white marble figure at Windsor.

Despite Britain’s defeat in the American War of Independence, William Harcourt continued to be viewed as a hero, the monument commemorating the honour and bravery demonstrated by him. It was therefore appropriate that his statue would be placed in the Chapel, flanking Deans and Canons, Military Knights, and members of the English Royal Family.

Stefanos Koutroumanidis (Archives volunteer)

The Sisters of the Scabards

The Sisters of the Scabards Holiday is the title of a short pamphlet which was published in 1641 [SGC RBK S.372]. It was one of several satirical pamphlets which circulated in the summer of 1641 after Dr William Roane was disgraced and exiled from Doctors’ Commons (a college of lawyers who practised civil law). The charges of corruption and extortion brought by the Long Parliament against Roane and his fellow civil lawyers, John Lambe, John Farmery, Edmund Peirce and Clement Corbett, destroyed not only their own reputations but also undermined the authority of Doctors’ Commons itself.

The title employs a catchphrase, ‘Sister of the Scabard’, taken from a popular contemporary comedic play about a lawless gang self-styled the ‘Brothers and Sisters of…The Blade and the Scabberd’. The term quickly became a euphemism for a prostitute.

The pamphlet features two brothel-keepers named after areas of London – Mrs Bloomsbury and Mrs Long-acre. They are portrayed as good-humoured characters who tease one another about the size of their bellies after drinking lots of “fat-feeding ale”. They complain about the treatment they have received at the hands of the ‘Gentlemen Clarkes’. Mrs Long-acre describes how these men would get drunk, throw the brothel’s residents out on the street, leave without paying and then summon her  “to appeare in Pauls the next Court day, to answere for keeping a common bawdy-house”.  Forced to pay the officer of the court and the ‘Gentlemen Clarkes’ a hefty fine, she suggests that these actions were merely a money-making scam for the Doctors’ Commons lawyers in the long vacation.

The women conclude their conversation by planning to build a “Hospitall for all of our societie that are old and not able to keepe up trade” with the money they have saved now that they are no longer paying fines to corrupt lawyers.

Kelda Roe (Archives Assistant)

This was the verdict of the people of Saltash in Cornwall on their vicar, John Crewkerne. In a letter to the Dean and Canons dating from around 1404 [SGC XI.K.6], they complained that he was “deaf and cannot hear confessions except to the scandal of the person confessing. He is a revealer of confessions because he is a drunkard and publicly discloses the confessions of parishioners…he has caused some of his parishioners to be outlawed and some to be deported overseas…[he] has sold the sacraments to his parishioners and would not minister the viaticum to those at the point of death when he was asked…”. They begged the Dean and Canons to “appoint another suitable and learned priest who can instruct us according to God’s law and exonerate you from this responsibility”.

The church of Saltash was one of the endowments which gave the College its income. Given by the Black Prince, Edward, Prince of Wales, on 9 May 1351, it was one of the earliest properties given to the Dean and Canons, and part of their role as rector involved the appointment of the vicar. John Crewkerne had been appointed to the vicarage of Saltash in 1398, but within a few months problems arose surrounding the non-payment to the Dean of £100. This would appear to have been a sweetener to have allowed Crewkerne to exchange his living with another, but did not appear specifically as such in the bond of appointment. On being instituted as vicar, Crewkerne simply refused to pay.

This began a long series of legal action that continued for the next 9 years. Although their exact reasons are unknown, it is clear that the Dean and Canons wanted him gone. However, the living of Saltash was a rich one that Crewkerne did not intend to give up without a fight. Attempts were made several times to remove him through the Court of Common Pleas, the Husting Court, County Courts, King’s Court and ecclesiastical courts. In addition, the Pope was petitioned on a number of occasions to act in favour of the Dean and Canons. Finally, on 18 January 1408, the case was decided. Crewkerne was to resign the vicarage, but the Dean and Canons were to pay him an annual pension of £20 for life. As this represented the annual vicar’s income from Saltash anyway, Crewkerne was amply compensated for the loss of his position, and he received this money for the next 12 years until ultimately the King was petitioned and ruled in favour of the Dean and Canons.

The complaint of his parishioners is a small part of the whole quarrel. The fact that the people of Saltash took 6 years to make a complaint, refusing to pay tithes until the matter was sorted, suggests that it was an attempt to take advantage of the dispute. When threatened with excommunication, it would seem that they chose to make their peace with the winning side, blackening Crewkerne’s character and giving the Dean and Canons a bit of extra ammunition in the protracted legal battle for the income of a rich living.

Eleanor Cracknell (Assistant Archivist)

This blog was taken from a chapter by A.K.B. Evans in St George’s Chapel Windsor in the Fourteenth Century edited by N Saul (2005)

“We promise that there shall be no damage to
            the Turf or undue noise.”
Surely the daughters of our Windsor Choir
Must to angelic perfectness aspire,
What mortal e’er played croquet without tattle
Without – of tongues and balls th’united rattle?
            Who do not stamp upon the Turf and knock it
            Indignant, when they’re made a miss at Croquet
            Still to your suit the indulgent Chapter give
            Condition’d and revocable leave,
First to the Horse Shoe’s inmates we confine,
Those who in this exciting game may join,
None but the children of St. George’s troop,
Shall wield the mallet there, or fix the hoop.
            The Cloister is the pledge of care and quiet,
            The Town would bring in trespassing and riot,
            Next Croquet only we allow, not Cricket,
            The single peg and not the double wicket.
By balls that into areas descend
The windows broken he that owns must mend,
No dogs must henceforth on the lawn be seen,
No refuse vile disgrace the well-kept green.
            Lastly, our leave will on experience cease,
            If spoiled our grass become, or spoil’d our Peace,
            To your own promise be yourselves but true
            “No damage to the Turf or noise undue”

The letter entitled ‘The Dean’s answer to the Daughters of the Choir’ is a lyrical response to the daughters of the lay clerks by Dean G. Wellesley on May 8 1874 [SGC ACC/2006/044]. Previously in the possession of Rosemary Marciniak, the letter was written during the period her great grandfather Thomas Hunt was a lay clerk (1865-1908). One of Thomas Hunt’s daughters wrote the initial letter to Dean Wellesley, asking whether she and others (daughters of other lay clerks) could play on the lawns.  Lay clerks (choirmen) had been living in the Horseshoe Cloister since the 15th century, when the present houses were constructed to the west of St George’s Chapel.

In this humorous rhyme, Dean Wellesley lays out specific rules on who plays what and when on the green turf, and also states that ‘no undue noise’ should be heard in the Cloister. Croquet is to be played not cricket, and dogs are forbidden on the ‘well-kept green’. The fact that Dean Wellesley has outlined his responses in a witty and courteous poem shows that he is astute and, whilst cheery, blunt and to the point.

Stefanos Koutroumanidis (Archives volunteer)