Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.Phillimore, Lucy
History
Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.
Phillimore, Lucy
Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714 -- Biography; Wren family; Wren, Christopher, Sir, 1632-1723
These were added to the treasury of the Garter, which contained many
articles of great value. There was a set of triple gilt silver plate
wrought by Van Vianen[25] of Nuremberg, estimated at over 3,000_l._,
several other pieces of plate, Edward IV.'s steel armour, gilt, and
covered with crimson velvet embroidered with pearls, rubies and gold,
fifteen rich copes embroidered in gold, altar-cloths and hangings worked
with the same costly material.
[GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.]
There was also the blue velvet mantle, the George and Garter of Gustavus
Adolphus, each letter of the motto made in diamonds. These had been sent
to the King of Sweden by Charles I. at the close of the campaign in 1627
as a mark of friendship and respect for his valour, and were the richest
ever sent even to a sovereign.
After the heroic king's death on the field at Lutzen, in 1634, a solemn
embassy brought the mantle and the jewels back to England, when they
were consigned to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor, with a charge from
King Charles to lay them up in the treasury 'for a perpetual memorial of
that renowned King, who died in the field of battle wearing some of
those jewels, to the great honour of the Order, as a true martial prince
and companion thereof.'
A few years later King Charles presented Dean Wren to the rectory of
Great Haseley[26] near Oxford, with a fine old church containing two
crusaders' tombs.
In the parish of Haseley is the manor of Ryecote (or Ricot), which by
marriage had become the property of Sir Henry Norris, Queen Elizabeth's
ambassador to France, whom she created Baron Norris (or Norreys) of
Ryecot, and whose descendants, now the Earls of Abingdon, possess the
manor to this day. During Dr. Wren's incumbency, a strange event took
place. Among the retainers of Lord Norris was an old man who had charge
of the fish ponds; he had one nephew, who was the heir of all his
uncle's possessions and savings. The nephew enticed the old man out one
night, waited till he fell asleep under an oak tree, murdered him by a
blow on the head, dragged the body to one of the ponds, tied a great
stone to the neck and threw the corpse in. There it lay _five weeks_,
during which time Lord Norris and all the neighbours wondered what had
become of the old man. At length the body was found by the men who were
about to clean the pond, and were attracted to the spot by the swarms of
flies; they raised the corpse with great difficulty and recognised it.
[AN AWFUL WITNESS.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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