25
Aug

Tewkesbury Abbey

   Posted by: Judy Howard   in Meetings

I’ve been allocated the letter “T” for my Scrabble talk at the Auhust General Meeting, so I would like to talk about Tewkesbury Abbey which I had the pleasure of visiting in 2007.  I will talk a little about the Battlefield as well, because it is so integral to the Abbey.

The Abbey is located on the edge of the Cotswolds, about 10 kms from Cheltenham and is near the junction of the Severn and Avon Rivers.  Tewkesbury the town is very old, most buildings date back to mediaeval period, with two stories and what we know as the “Tudor” style.

It’s quaint and pleasant.  To the right of the main square coming into the town you come across this enormous church, which dominates and almost overwhelms the small town.

The history of the Abbey, like most things in Britain, is many hundreds of years old.  It is believed that a Saxon Benedictine monastery was founded there in the 8th century.

The present abbey was built in 1092 by a Norman nobleman, Sir Robert Fitz-Hamon, who came to England with William the Conqueror.  The abbey was consecrated in 1121 and claims to have the largest Norman tower in the world and the largest exterior arch in Britain.  The Abbey was given a makeover in the 14th century and, reflecting its importance, has a number of beautiful memorials to the local aristocracy.

Tewkesbury Abbey (photograph by Judy Howard)

During the Dissolution of the Monasteries the monastic buildings of the Abbey were destroyed in 1539 but the town saved the church by buying the property from Henry VIII for £459.  We can be grateful for this because the locals saved a very beautiful and historical church.

Tewkesbury passed from Fitz-Roy’s heir to Henry II to Richard I then King John and finally to Gilbert De Clare who held it with the Despensers for the next 200 years.  The De Clares came to England with William the Conquerer and also held the earldoms of Hertford and Pembroke.  The first Gilbert de Clare was one of the barons who sealed the Magna Carta at Runnymede and his son was a crusader, his grandson married a daughter of King Edward I.  For a brief moment he joined Simon de Montfort’s rebellion, however he thought better of it and led the royal troops to victory at Evesham in 1265.

After a few more battles and rebellions, Tewkesbury passed into the hands of Hugh Le Despenser, the infamous man that had an evil influence over King Edward II which eventually led to his execution.  Hugh’s widow and son, also Hugh, extensively converted the quire of the Abbey from Norman to Decorated architecture, finished the vaulted roof, built the chapels and put in the seven magnificent stained glass windows.

The estate then passed to Hugh’s nephew Edward who fought at Poitiers and he has an intriguing kneeling figure on the top of his chantry chapel which looks out from under the canopy towards the high alter.

The estate passed through Edward’s daughter, Isabella, who married Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Worcester and then a second marriage to another Richard Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick.  The estate passed through their daughter to Richard Neville, father of the infamous Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, who died at Barnet in 1471 and his family fortunes were finally shattered three weeks later at the Battle of Tewkesbury.

Staying with the Abbey, the Tewkesbury part of the Neville estate passed to George, the Duke of Clarence when he married the Kingmakers eldest daughter.  After the demise of Clarence, he and his wife were buried in a vault behind the altar.  This brings to the end the list of royal and noble burials at Tewkesbury.

All the people mentioned above are buried in impressive tombs within the Abbey and many have chantries which, luckily, have survived to the present day.

The Abbey has a wonderful feel when you enter it, there is a real sense of peace and endurance but also of serenity – more so than many other great churches.  We just wanted to sit down and contemplate the abbey’s beauty and enjoy its light.  Maybe it was because there were no other people in the abbey at the time, I liked to think that the Benedictine monks had created such a peaceful ambience that it has survived to today.  There is still a small chapel in the abbey remembering the Benedictines.

The other think that struck me about the abbey was the modern inclusions which made me feel that the abbey had retained its relevance for the current world.  There are two windows completed in 2002 which are truly stunning, they have a religious theme of course but they blend so beautifully with the old building. The windows were commissioned to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the Benedictine monks coming to Tewkesbury (in 1102).

Another is a modern statue “Our lady, Queen of Peace” commissioned to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II accession.

All this beauty and then I started to contemplate the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 and the Yorkist victory which complete the recovery of the crown by Edward IV.

The battlefield is just outside the abbey and it doesn’t pay to contemplate that terrible bloody conflict and the Yorkists who pursued the Lancastrians into the sanctuary of the Abbey, dragging them out to be slaughtered.  The abbey historians like to remind visitors of the terrible scene when the priest tried to intervene, holding up the sacrament, to no avail.

The battle occurred on a Saturday on 4 May 1471 and Edward’s strategy, after defeating the Lancastrians at Barnet 2 weeks earlier, was to deny the Lancastrians time to gather their strength.  Edward hoped to bring them to battle in circumstances that would assure their annihilation.  Edward wanted to fight as far away from London as possible, so he led them in a chase which was a feat on endurance, ending in the Cotswolds at Tewkesbury.  The Lancastrians were exhausted and Edward’s customary brilliant battle plan won the day and finally secured his crown, for the second time.

Edward of Lancaster was also executed after the battle.  Apparently he was very insolent to King Edward and lost life immediately thereafter.  It is thought that Richard may have carried out this deed in the presence of the King, Clarence and William Hastings.

Richard commanded the van, on the left, and he played a key role in Edward’s victory.  This was only Richard’s second full scale battle, the first being Barnet where he was injured, and he was only 18 years old at the time.  William Hastings commanded the right, he was more experienced in battle than Richard but had not performed well at Barnet.

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