Today we are off to see Queen Mary’s (Harry VIII’s sister) grave in Bury St Edmund. When her husband the King Louis, king of France died she quickly married the love of her life without permission of her brother the king. They then lived outside the court for a while until Harry got over being mad. Finally forgiven her husband went to London to support Harry and Mary died alone at their country estate in East Anglia. She was originally buried in the Abby but after England left the Catholic Church the Abby was closed and they had to move her to the local church. It was not the grand memorial that I expected. In fact it was only a plaque with her first husband’s name misspelled. But since the Abby was pretty much in ruins it was a good thing she was moved. At some point much later they lowered her grave marker more flush with the ground and we’re surprised to find her body actually in the memorial box. The locals doing the work then cut off snippets of her hair and sold them on the side. There was a small bit of her hair in the museum done the street. Whether it is really Queen Mary’s hair is anybodies guess but the locals seem sure.

After the museum we had a little time to shop around. Bury St Edmunds was a surprisingly cute town with planting of shopping options. We only had an hour so we needed to be judicious in our selection. A couple of stores caught my eye and I headed off. Val spies a Laura Ashley who would have thought those were still around. And yes the clothes look very similar to the hey day of the brand. To be fair they did have some cute things but I quickly moved on. The other store was my downfall. I didn’t expect to do much shopping on this trip. A few gift shop purchases but nothing more. Definitely 2 new dresses and a tunic. But they were very cute and not something I have seen in the states. Val found a few things. Sadly but probably for the best our time was about up so we headed down to meet up with everyone. We ended up being the first ones to arrive so we went back to an antique jewelry store we passed. They had some great rings in the window. We ended up going in and Val tried on a few and made a selection. I had to prod her along a bit because I didn’t want to be late but of course we were. Everyone was on the bus as we did the “walk of shame” back to our seats. I won’t be late again.

Our next stop was for a light lunch close to OxBurgh Hall. The Hall had a lot of “conservation” going on and scaffolding was up all throughout the court-yard but the inside was all good.

The main draw was the needlework done by Mary Queen of Scott’s and Bess of Hardwick. Mary worked on them when she was imprisoned at the hall. There were quite a few and they are very elaborate. They even had a pair of Mary’s embroidery scissors on display.

The house also boasted of a priest hole. It was right off the main bedchamber hidden in a tiny corner closet. I waited behind a just a few people to go down but then watched the man in front of me lay down on the ground and try to squeeze I. And decided that wasn’t for me. Instead I went up to the tower and enjoyed the view. Again the tower was just like 4 maybe 5 flights up so not real high.

The family chapel had a beautiful Antwerp Triptych from the Middle Ages. It was surprising to see it hidden in this relatively tiny chapel. It was kind of a distance from the house so not everyone was even venturing up to see it.

The property also bordered a nice community church that has two more of the terra-cotta tombs. Sadly the lead roof of the church was stolen in November and the rain was getting in and damaging one of the tombs. Not sure how anyone steals a lead roof off a church that sat right on the road in front of the main tourist attraction in the area and even more so across the street from the local bar. Regardless it is very sad that they did. The local community doesn’t have the money to replace it and at a pound per postcard I don’t think they will get there fast enough to save the tombs. Removing the roofs back when Henry VIII broke from Rome led to a lot of the ruins we have today. So it they cannot fix this roof soon only the walls will be left.

This was the first day we had any significant rain on the trip. Even then it didn’t last too long so we made it through alright. It was actually fun to walk through a small English town in the rain. Just wish I had worn the rain boots I carried over. So far they are the one thing I haven’t worn.

The big rush at all our stops was to get back in time to get ready for David Starkey to talk on Henry VII. He is one of the premier historians in England and the first one to really stress that you need to look at the person and their relationships and not just the position and government establishments. However, everyone set him up to be a fussy curmudgeon but he wasn’t so bad. His talk was very interesting claiming we didn’t put as much emphasis on the foreign takeover under Henry VII. All the people surrounding him were generally French and he used French soldiers to win the battle that made him king. He was a little “my way is right” but I guess I can forgive him for that.

He was at our table for the first course and he was pleasant during dinner. Feeling the need to participate in the discussion I spent a bit of time trying to come up with a good question. One of his students did a talk on the bus about Mary and how she was the forgotten queen. Here she was the first women to really govern England and she is so overshadowed by her sister that she gets no credit. Anyway at one point he noted on the vast number of records on Elizabeth and I asked if he thought whether today’s popularity had anything to do with the easier access to Elizabeth. He agreed he believed if they had more records on Mary it might balance her out a bit more. Right now everyone just focuses on the phantom pregnancies and the burning of the heretics. I felt good about my question and was glad the conversation moved on to another topic.

It was nice to have our regular historians Sarah and Nicola back for the next two courses.

I would have loved to had another beer in the airmen’s bar but I had enough wine with dinner and decided to go on up. The bar was pretty cool. It had signatures from the American WWII pilots that were stationed nearby. There was also a wall where they signed if they came back later in life. Their were several on there and they gave more a of a brief history on that wall. We had drinks in here the night before so that was going g to have to do.

Another great day in England.