On our trip down south last year we had always planned to stop at Lichfield to view the Cathedral. It’s an impressive building, the only mediæval Cathedral in the UK with three spires:-

The West Front (above) is adorned with statues of kings, queens and saints:-

South spire:-

The east spire was shrouded in scaffolding when we were there:-

Mediæval tomb to south side (possibly of a bishop?)-

The Cathedral was badly damaged during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (once called the English Civil War.) After the Restoration of the Crown King Charles II was instrumental in having repairs done. His statue stands in this corner:-

There were also renovations carried out in Victorian times.

Illustrated by Barbara Robertson.  Balnain Books, 1991, 139 p.

This is the memoir of Sarah Werden, born out of wedlock since her father, being an apprentice printer, could not marry. Sarah was brought up during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms as a Leveller, believing that “land should be divided so evenly out that every man or woman should have a fair and equitable share for living peaceably as did Adam and Eve before the fall,” her sea-green ribbons a sign that the wearer was against kings and bishops and lords of all kinds. When her father was time-served the family moved to the printers’ quarter of London, living next to Elizabeth Lilburne, wife of the former Parliamentarian Colonel who had begun writing pamphlets against how the new Cromwellian dispensation has turned out, that for the poor nothing has changed. Sarah too wonders, “How is it that the worst always comes to the top, as bubbles come up through milk boiling and burst?”

From her father she learned the printing trade but was married off to a coarse baker from whose philandering and abuse she soon felt forced to leave, finding refuge with a group of Diggers near Cobham but they are subject to the libel and scorn of the locals and driven out, whereon she fell in with a family of Quakers before eventually setting off for the New World.

Mitchison inhabits Sarah’s world for us impeccably, immersing us in the times with frequent mentions of Gerrard Winstanley, Thomas Rainsborough and the Putney Debates, and with Sarah’s constant reflection on religion. It is all artifice of course, but the book is still noteworthy for the facility with which it was written considering Mitchison was in her nineties at the time. It was in fact her last novel to be published and makes for a fine epitaph.

Pedant’s corner:- spiritiual (spiritual,) “Mr Yates’ press” (Yates’s,) “could amost have been dancing” (is ‘amost’ an archaic spelling for almost? Or is this just a typo?) “Mr James’ voice” (James’s,) “so that I could not if I would naysay him” (seems to be lacking a word or two,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech (x 3,) plowshare (even if by this time she was in the American colonies surely Sarah would spell this ‘ploughshare’?)

We had no idea before we went that Ashby de la Zouch had an old ruined castle, but as we were doing the detour round the town required by the street fair blocking the main road we saw a sign pointing to it.

As old castles go it’s one of the better ones.

From entrance:-

Welcome Board:-

First building:-

Further portion:-

Picture window:-

The fireplace on the left wall has the remains of shields on it:-

Interior:-

The castle was demolished as the result of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms:-

The last major act in Scotland of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms – still known to some as the (English) Civil War – was the Battle of Dunbar in 1650.

We’ve been to Dunbar many times and I had spotted a signpost pointing to the battlefield but at the time had an appointment elsewhere so couldn’t stop.

Last year the good lady and a friend had signed up to FutureLearn history course on the battle, their interest triggered by the discovery at Durham Cathedral of human remains which turned out to be those of Scottish soldiers captured during the battle, and taken to Durham to be kept imprisoned (under atrocious conditions) in the Cathedral, where some died.

So it was that last summer we made a concerted effort to find the battlefield. Yes, there was that signpost but there’s not much in the way of information boards at the battlefield itself or on the road the signpost pointed along. This very recently erected stone was set back from the road and commmemorates those taken prisoner at the Battle of Dunbar, 1650.

However, I am not sure if the two pictures below are of the battlefield or not. (North Sea in background.) After we came home I read up a bit and found the site of the battlefield straddles the main A1 road but does lead down towards the sea.

Once back at the road from which the signpost points we discovered this memorial. On it is an inscription, “3rd September 1650,” and a quotation from Thomas Carlyle, “Here took place the brunt or essential agony of the Battle of Dunbar.” (In the background is a modern cement works – and a horse):-

Close-up:-

A museum in Dunbar had a display about the battle including a piece of tapestry commemorating the Battles of Dunbar 1650, and Worcester 1651:-