Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey

In our previous post, written with Eileen Bates, we described the buildings at Cheneygates, and dealt with its history regarding Edward IV’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville, who sought sanctuary there in 1483 when she and her family/co-conspirators plotted unsuccessfully against Richard of Gloucester. He, of course, quite rightly became Richard III, and dealt more leniently with her than his usurping successor was to do. One thing should be said here. Contrary to the widely held believe, Elizabeth lived in luxury at Cheneygates, not in the next best thing to a vile prison.

This link  also focuses on Elizabeth, but in addition deals with an earlier moment in history. Cheneygates figured in the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV, and the latter died in the Jerusalem Chamber (pictured above). There was, apparently, a strange prophecy that Henry would “die in Jerusalem”.  How true it turned out to be! It is also rather appropriate that Henry, who had almost certainly murdered Richard II, died looking up at a ceiling where Richard’s initial featured prominently. I hope it haunted him.

 


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  1. […] existence at the time in 1483, when Katherine’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville, fled into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey…um, taking a load of treasure with […]

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  2. […] is far older, and could have been the golden eagle used for the first time at the coronation of Henry IV in 1399. If so, it was this Ampulla which Richard III conveyed to Westminster Abbey the day after […]

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  3. […] shame Thomas Walsingham, who is praised as the “source” of much concerning the reigns ofRII and HIV. I’m only thankful he didn’t live long enough to set about Richard III as well! […]

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  4. […] on, Henry IV was the Lancastrian campaign! He certainly wasn’t an innocent bystander who was swept along […]

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  5. […] semé-de lis[4]… The Royal Arms thus remained until 1411, when upon the second Great Seal of Henry IV the fleur-de-lys in England (as in France) were reduced to three in […]

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  6. […] 1405 while her husband was imprisoned at Pevensey. It was doubtless from here that she petitioned Henry IV for her husband’s […]

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  7. […] Michael  was convicted of treason by the Merciless Parliament in 1388.  Being a favourite of Richard II had made him a scapegoat for the king’s enemies.   Escaping to France he was out of reach of […]

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  8. […] Richard III’s predecessor, Richard II, shares with him the injustice of being maligned through history. In Richard II’s case all we hear that he was a hysterical madman who was rightly removed from his throne (and this world) by his cousin Henry, Duke of Lancaster, who became Henry IV. […]

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  9. […] had ever been, and certainly far more so than they were ever to be again. To give but one example, Henry Bolingbroke‘s Brecon was reckoned to be worth £1,500 a year. In an era when an income of £666 was the […]

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  10. […] but there are far fewer of them (four plus the Dean) than in centuries gone by, so they meet in Jerusalem Chamber instead of the much larger 700-year-old Chapter House (which seated 80 monks plus the abbot on a […]

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  11. […] the most likely date for Elizabeth’s departure from the tedious confines of sanctuary at Cheyneygates.    She also wrote to Thomas Grey, at that time in France,  to return […]

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  12. […] Lancastrian usurpation of the throne of England. The usurper was Henry of Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV, and the king he usurped and killed was his first cousin Richard II. I think Terry Jones’s words […]

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