The New Murrey and Blue blog

A modern 3-D printed statue of Henry VI is soon going to grace the streets of Coventry. The original, made in the 1500’s, is housed in the Herbert Art Gallery. The local council wanted to use the Tudor era statue in the rebuild of Coventry Cross but it was deemed too fragile to withstand outdoor weather, hence an exact copy was decided upon instead. The cross and statue should be in place sometime in the Spring.

Coventry Cross has quite an interesting history. This latest rebuild is about the 5th. The different crosses are as follows:

1. Early medieval. A simple cross in the market place., probably red sandstone, like most of Coventry’s medieval buildings.
2. 15th C. In 1423 a new cross was erected with financial help from the mayor, Henry Peyto. It stood on ‘eight pillars.’ It was already deteriorating less than 20 years later, so it underwent a rebuild by money left for that purpose in the will of Sir William Hollies, a former mayor of London.
3. Tudor Cross. By the time of the Tudors, the old cross was in poor shape again, even growing dangerous. It was dismantled and a new one raised on the same spot. Curiously, the topmost pinnacles were to be decorated by carvings of ‘naked boys with fans.’ Perhaps even more curiously, there were a number of carvings of kings in the niches on the cross–and one of them is listed as being Richard III. This seems unlikely owing to the time it was built and it is curious that Edward IV is not listed as having a statue. (Some think the figure was actually Henry III, which seems far more likely.) Sadly, we cannot tell for sure who truly was on the old cross, as the structure was messed about with during the Civil War, with Lady Godiva replacing a statue of Christ, and then, in 1771,the whole thing was demolished and its parts scattered.
4. In the 1960’s, the cross was rebuilt yet again, in imitation of the medieval original and about 100 yards from its original spot. It was completed in 1976.
5. In 2007, the council debated relocating the cross elsewhere in the city. People protested but the council won out and it was taken down in 2019. As mentioned earlier, the cross is now being rebuilt in a new location.

Coventry was a very Lancastrian town, hence its particular devotion to Henry VI. Henry Tudor encouraged the idea that his predecessor was a saint and at one point the old king was even thought to be more popular than Thomas Becket. Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou moved to Coventry during the early part of the Wars of the Roses for four years, bringing the Crown Jewels and holding Parliament, which effectively made the city the temporary capital of England.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-64433311