Dates to remember in March 2024 – 2

 

Dates to remember in March 2024 – 2

English Civil War reenactment

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Some of the more esoteric memorable March days are intriguing and not as widely known as St Patrick’s Day, on 17^th March, when the whole world seems to claim Irish ancestry, or the Gemini Boat Race, (usually just called the Boat Race), on 30^th March.

11^th March: Penny Loaf Day

The English Civil War, which was actually a series of wars, took place between 1642 and 1651. Newark-on Trent, in Nottinghamshire, was strategically positioned at the junction of the Great North Road, from London to the North, and the Fosse Way, from Exeter to Leicester by way of the Cotswolds. The roads linked Chester and York to Oxford, where King Charles I had his headquarters. Newark-on-Trent was a Royalist stronghold.

In March 1644, Henry Clay had a recurring dream for three nights that his house was on fire. Becoming convinced that his dream foretold disaster, he evacuated his family from the house. A short while later, a bomb fired by the Parliamentary forces destroyed the house on 11^th March.

In gratitude, believing he had been saved by a miracle, Henry Clay left £100 in trust, the interest on half the sum to be paid to a vicar to preach a sermon annually commemorating the event and the interest on the other half to be used to buy bread for the poor of the parish every year.

This year, 2024, Penny Loaf Day will be celebrated on Sunday 10^th March. A procession proceeds from the Town Hall to St Mary Magdalene. The loaves of bread are distributed to local charities.

A strange, rather macabre legend holds that the body of a drowned man could be located by putting quicksilver (mercury) in a penny loaf and throwing it in the river.

 18^th March: St Edward the Martyr’s Day

Edward was the Anglo-Saxon king of England from 975 to 978. When he was 15, he was murdered on the orders of his step-mother on 18^th March, 978, in Dorset. His body was buried at Wareham, but after miracles occurred at his tomb, he was venerated as a Saint and Martyr and his body relocated to Shaftesbury Abbey.

Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey.

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

In 1982, the Saint Edward Brotherhood was founded at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey. Brookwood, the London Necropolis, is set in 220 acres and is the largest cemetery in the UK and one of the largest in Europe.  The Saint Edward Brotherhood is a monastic community who created a new church in the cemetery grounds, eventually to house the mortal remains of St Edward the Martyr. This was accomplished in 1988. Daily services are chanted at the shrine every day.