Two Fascinating Windows In St Mary Magdalene Church

Helmdon Historical Articles

The Fascinating Windows In St Mary Magdalene Church

Marshall Martin & Jean Spendlove

The Campiun window is rightly famous and has been written about at length elsewhere. It is easily interpreted. Jean Spendlove in her excellent History of St Mary Magdalene writes “It is in the east end of the north wall and 1313 is accepted as the date for it. It was still in medieval lead till it was cleaned and reset in it 1976 – 7, so it is not very probable that it has never been moved from its original site, though it is the shape and size, more or less, for any of the north or south aisle windows. If began in its present place, then the north aisle was built by 1313”. (see article no.13)

However, it is the presence of two other windows which are of interest here.

Jean Spendlove continues:

“The north aisle’s slightly lighter pillars with hexagonal capitals, and windows similar to the south aisle’s though more deeply cusped, suggest its later date was late in the thirteenth century. For each of the aisles, there is a scrap of heraldic glass which seems to offer a clue to the date; but in each case the clue is too vague to date the building. In the south wall, at the west end, the apex of the glass represents the arms of the Warennes Earls of Surrey; and in the north wall, straight opposite, a similar piece represents the arms of the Earls and the first Duke of Lancaster. Both these families engaged in the running conflict between king and barons, both by intrigue and in arms, and acquired (or sometimes lost) widely extensive holdings in land, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries It would be interesting to know whether these families left such marks in other churches in other areas”.

It was a letter from historian Marshall Martin dated 17^th April 1997 which had been overlooked in a miscellaneous box of Helmdon history that has recently claimed interest. He came to the village in 1997 as a lecturer on church architecture and it was these two little windows of the Earls and Dukes of Lancaster that he was fascinated by.

This first one shows three gold lions on a red shield and at the top is a label of thee points each charged with three gold fleur-de-leys on a blue background.

He writes that these arms were used by the following.

• Edmund, Earl of Lancaster (“Crouchback”) 1245 – 1296, son of Henry III
• Thomas, 2^nd Earl of Lancaster, executed 1322 for his part in the murder of Piers Gaveston, Edward II’s friend. Thomas married Alice Lacy, daughter of Henry, Earl of Salisbury.
• Henry, 3^rd Earl of Lancaster, 1281 – 1345. HENRY FIRST MARRIED Maud Chaworth, daughter of Sir Patrick Chaworth. Then he married Alix de Joinville. Henry wore the arms of England with a blue land until his brother Thomas was executed and then he used his brother’s arms.
• Henry, 4^th Earl of Lancaster and 1^st Duke of Lancaster 1314 – 1361. He married Isabel, daughter of Henry, Lord Beaumont.
• John of Gaunt, d. 1399, Duke of Lancaster and King of Castile. He married firstly Blanche of Lancaster, secondly Constanza, daughter of the King of Castille and Leon, and finally, Katherine Swynford (nee Rouet).

Marshall is unsure, as indeed is Jean Spendlove, why this, or indeed the other little window with the arms of the Warennes, Earls of Surrey, may have had an interest in Helmdon, but both were engaged in the running conflict between king and barons, both by intrigue and in arms, and acquired (or sometimes lost) widely extensive holdings in land, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. To sum up Marshall suggests that the fascinating Lancaster window may be (13, in which case it is the first Earl of Lancaster who took the cross at Northampton and went on a crusade with his brother Edward. It would be interesting to know whether these families left such marks in other churches in other areas.

Marshall Martin & Jean Spendlove