Land of the Prince Bishops

John Speed's map 1610

As you drive into Durham you will most likely see a road sign proclaiming that you are entering The Land of The Prince Bishops. The Bishop of Durham has always been Bishop by Divine Providence while other Bishops are  by Divine Permission.

So far from Westminster, Durham's Bishop enjoyed extraordinary powers and could hold his own parliament, raise his own army and appoint his own sheriffs and Justices. Laws, levies, taxes and custom dues were his. He also created markets and fairs, issued charters, claimed salvage from shipwrecks, revenues from mines, administered forests and minted his own coins.

It was said that there were two kings in England, and one of them was the Bishop of Durham. The administrative centre of all this activity was the castle and the buildings on Palace Green, some of which still remain. Henry VIII curbed some of the Prince Bishops powers and in 1538 ordered the destruction of the shrine of St Cuthbert.

Until the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury, St Cuthbert's was the most important shrine in England. It was famous for two reasons - the healing properties he had in life continued after his death, and his body was, as they say, incorruptible. That was back in 668. When Henry ordered the destruction of the shrine, his officers came to Durham intent on taking the gold and jewels, and tried to throw down the saint's bones. Check the link to find out what happened!  ~ http://www.durhamworldheritagesite.com/architecture/cathedral/intro/cuthbert-shrine

Durham's location has always meant the city kept a wary eye on the Scots. The castle is one of the few Norman keeps to withstand a Scots attack. The Battle of Neville's Cross on 17th October 1346 is well documented, and there are several accounts to follow. here are links to just two of them:
http://durhamcow.com/durham-events/battle-of-nevilles-cross/ or
http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/medieval/battleview.asp?BattleFieldId=28

Plague outbreaks reached Durham in 1544, 1589 and 1598.

Locked out!

We went for a walk over the Bank Holiday weekend. Picked up the keys, slammed out of the house and halfway down the drive realised we'd picked up the wrong set of keys. Duh. Fortunately we'd left the windows open and hadn't engaged the security alarm. We usually do both, but luck was with us this time. Hopefully we knocked at a neighbours door. Did he have a set of ladders long enough to reach an upstairs window? Amid much laughter, he did, and climbed in through our bedroom window, came down the stairs and opened the door for us, grinning.

For those who are interested in the current trends in reviewing, here's another link:
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/18/how_to_write_a_bad_review/
This one has lots of spin-off links and makes an interesting read.

As for me, I'm away up the hill to visit the Bank Manager this morning, so I can't dilly-dally here for much longer. We've been out walking every day this week so far, and it certainly pays off in alertness, though I can't say it helps with sleeping. I still do most of it after 1am. The radiators warmed up this morning for the first time since May, which means we had a very cold night, and certainly there's been frost on car windscreens. Summer's over, folks. Autumn is here, so look out for falling leaves clogging the drains and Virginia creeper leaves turning a gorgeous dark red. Ours hasn't, as yet, but it will, it will. All the rain this summerhas turned our garden into a crazy jungle in which I've been hacking and tearing all this week. Untold bags of vegetation have gone to the household waste recycling plant (otherwise known as The Tip) and there's loads more to do. And yes,before you ask, interspersed with all this activity, I've edited a good many chapters of my book about Matho.

The pic? Durham Cathedral from the south yard. We were there on Tuesday, and it was a gorgeous day - for an hour, and then it all went to hell in a handcart...

Phoenix rising

The little laptop is not dead - I should have had faith! It worked perfectly this morning, so that is good news.  The problem of incoming e-mails might be easily solved. I've noticed I get three copies of the same message with five mnutes on the same day, but from different groups, which certainly isn't necessary for me! Once will do! So some groups I'm going to mark as view website only, otherwise I'll never get any writing done.

My pictures  for the next few days were all taken as I walked out of the hotel doorway and gazed across at the Castle and Cathedral, then walked along the river bank to Prebend's Bridge, up to the Cathedral and back down the other river bank back to the hotel. The weather was dull and threatening, with occasional flashes of sunshine. The river was high, full of brown flood water, but there was no flooding. Pity the little boy who fell into the river a little further upstream a week ago. He had little chance in such a torrent, because the same conditions existed then.
The river loops like a horseshoe around the promontory on which the medieval buildings stand, and the ancient bridges and cobbled streets are still there, too. A Cambridge professor once called Durham the finest medieval building in Europe, saying that for setting, unity, harmony and strength, he chose Durham out of all the other monuments of Christian faith. I'm happy to claim it as my home town.

Whited Sepulchres

Anne Perry is an author I’ve discovered in the last year or so. I may have read half a dozen of her books by now, all concerning William Monk and Hester Latterly, but this last title was easily, for me, the best. Whited Sepulchres, formerly known as The Breach of Promise. I first looked out for her books after Donald Maass recommeneded them.

There was one book of the series I tried and never finished. I cannot recall enough of the plot to warn you away from it, but this one gripped me from start to finish. Everyone wonders why Melville is so distraught about the wedding to a beautiful heiress that has been arranged for him, but he will say nothing except that he will not marry the girl. The family sue him for breach of promise. From such seemingly trivial beginnings a story develops that gripped me, had me reading through most of the night, and that’s rare these days.

Consequentially today I can hardly keep my eyes open.

The master storyteller of Victorian Society, claims the lettering on the front of the book, and I can see why. Every word she writes rings true, and is a lesson in how to integrate a plot successfully into a society. Which is why I could hardly believe what I read when I searched the internet for a photograph of her for this blog entry, and saw that she had been convicted for murder. It seems to be true; I’m still catching up with the internet reports, but she admits murdering her school friend’s “mother.” Google the name yourself; there are hundreds of references.

For the record, anyone with any interest in Durham Cathedral should watch Jonathan Foyle climb - yes, climb - the nave and tower. In this region, the half hour programme aired at 6.30 on BBC 2. Superb views of Durham from the air.

Bluebells and churches

Bluebells and churches seem to go together somehow, don't they? If anyone knows what the triangular piece above the church door in the picture below is called, do let me know. It is part of the old Norman church, still in use today, within the grounds of Seaton Delaval Hall.


(I've just added a piece about it to the new blog Historical Belles and Beaus - do pop over and take a look. here )

I like old churches, but dh dislikes going into them, or into churchyards, so I find myself sneaking into them when he is not around. I find them fascinating, gentle, peaceful places.

Locally we have the Saxon church at Escomb, the Normal Cathedral at Durham - a gorgeous contrast to the little Normal church at Seaton Delaval, and a pair of medieval churches at Bywell. There are many others dotted around Durham and Northumberland, but I can't mention them all!

I suppose I ought to mention the Abbey at Hexham. Its origins are Saxon, founded by St Wilfrid, no less. And there is a Saxon crypt with several Roman stones snitched from the Roman wall or Corstopitum, which isn't so very far away.
But much of the body of the church is not so very old. The Victorians did one of their refurbishment jobs on it. No doubt it needed it, and a fine job they did. But sadly, it no longer seems old to me.

I remember crawling around it with Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett in my hand, because one of the most dramatic scenes takes place within the Abbey. The transept in which Tom Erskine hides, watching a bowman take aim and fire at the hero, Lymond, still exists.

The arrow flies true, and Lymond...
'flung up his head, turned half around with the force of the explosion. The bow fell. For one second - two- he held fast to the broken coping, defying the heralds of agony and an easy darkness... The riven flesh and burst vessels made their protest, the freed blood springing liberal and scarlet through the fragments of Lymond's shirt. Erskine saw the long hands loosen, the sudden, uncontrolled sway; but was not prepared for the drowned, revealing blue gaze meeting his like a blow.
"And died stinkingly martyred," said Lynmond, with painful derision; and losing hold bit by bit, slipped into Erskine's gentle grasp.'

Still gets me, after all this time.

FAR AFTER GOLD arc

I have my book in my hands! FAR AFTER GOLD! by Jen Black!

Half a dozen ARCs arrived in the post today. It felt strangely unreal to think that I'd written it, because it looks like a normal paperback book. Stylish, even. One for me and the others to go out for reviews. I love the cover and I wish I had the approved cover art to put here for you. Soon, soon... so come Monday you know what I shall be doing - I'll be making those all important calls to secure reviewers. Wish me luck!

The picture is of Durham Cathedral. For both of us it was a case of going back "home." So many of the old places are gone, replaced by cafes and restaurants and it is difficult to walk twenty yards without the smell of food and coffee drifting out on the air. No wonder the nation is rapidly gaining weight!

The cathedral is about the only place safe from change. Difficult to remember cowering by the walls as the old red buses lumbered up the middle of Silver Street. Now it is a pedestrian thoroughfare, and probably rightly so given the size of modern buses. They'd be scraping people off the walls these days. Traffic has increased so much that only those who pay or have special passes are allowed to drive up to the cathedral.

Sometimes I'm surprised the weight of motor vehicles doesn't tilt the world off its axis.

On the other hand, we've all adapted so well to having cars that our lifestyles are now built around them. We live in places inaccessible by bus or train or so far away that to get to work in the morning we'd need to leave home by six to get there by nine - and this in a country as small as the UK. The old corner shop has all but disappeared because we all drive out of town to shop at the superstores like Tesco and Waitrose. Our lives are so busy that we don't have time to spend travelling anywhere by bus when we can get there in a third of time by car. Governments are going to have a dickens of a job persuading people out of their cars. I'm off to Bowes Museum tomorrow. How will I go? By car, of course. I have no idea if I could get there by bus. To go to Durham, much nearer than BM, I would have to use a minimum of two buses (a maximum of three) and the journey would take me two hours and four minutes at best, two hours and twenty five minutes at worst. And that is with connections within minutes of each other. Imagine what would happen if one bus was late...

No contest, is it?