Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

BUCKDEN PALACE TO BUCKDEN TOWERS 103 determination, he stood up to the king and afterwards to his son Richard I (the Lionheart), neither of them easy to deal with. Although they tell us nothing about the property itself, his biographers tell us about the frequent visits he made to Buckden. It was here too that his body rested on its way to Lincoln after his death in London in 1200. The pattern was set for the residence to grow in importance. Hugh was canonised in 1220, and there is no better saint to lend his name to today’s church at The Towers. In medieval times, when few could read, it became the custom to add a symbol, or attribute, to the picture or statue of a saint to make recognition easier. Our reading is better nowadays, but the modern depictions of Hugh in the Inner Courtyard and the church include his swan. He came across the swan at Stow, near Lincoln, another of his residences; it is said to have been a large, fierce bird but the Bishop tamed and befriended it. In the thirteenth century another Hugh, Hugh de Wells (1209 – 1235) replaced a largely timber building with a more permanent structure. His work was continued by the great Bishop Robert Grosseteste (1235 – 1253), who added the Great Hall. This was a sure sign that Buckden was regarded as second only to Lincoln among the numerous residences the bishops used across the centuries; estimates vary, but at least eight sites are recorded. Grosseteste was among the leading scholars of his day; as bishop he must have been dreaded by the corrupt and incompetent, and he did not shrink from criticising Rome and the pope himself; he would also stand up for the rights of the church against Henry III. Nonetheless, the bishop was greatly respected by many in his lifetime and a petition was made for his canonisation after his death; the petition failed, perhaps because he had been too outspoken. He is still much admired and has lent his name to Grosseteste College in the city of Lincoln. He died at Buckden. There is a report from 1291 that the work of Hugh de Wells and Robert Grosseteste had been ‘lately burned by misadventure’. From then on, throughout the fourteenth and much of the fifteenth centuries, we learn little about the bishops’ residence or their activities at Buckden. It was a period of important events: the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, the Wars of the Roses and the economic problems that resulted may account for this silence. Now, as the Wars of the Roses came to an end and the Tudor dynasty followed, the residence really became a palace. Two Builder Bishops It is appropriate to mention together here the two bishops whose achievement remains for us to ad- mire today. In some twenty-five years they completely changed the episcopal residence into an imposing palace fit for a bishop of importance – which each of them was, both becoming Lord Chancellor (the second highest office of state, and the chief royal chaplain), a post that brought them into the king’s inner circle of advisers. Bishops Thomas Rotherham (1471-1480) and John Russell (1480-1495) held the bishopric during the reigns of Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII. Henry was the first of the Tudor line, and we refer to the fifteenth century buildings as Tudor, even if part of the work began earlier. The Great Tower is attributed largely to Thomas Rotherham and the rest to John Russell; Russell’s is the badge that decorates the south and west walls of the Inner Gatehouse. Theirs is an early example of red and black patterned brickwork. Material for the bricks was to hand in the clay deposits of Huntingdonshire, and a kiln stood at Lymage, a site now under the western end of Grafham Water. Bricks from the kiln were also used at St Neots Priory and Diddington Church. A third builder, Bishop William Smith (1495-1514), continued with a new chapel for the palace, but little remains for us to see today. 1 Katherine of Aragon Buckden’s most celebrated resident to date is undoubtedly Queen Katherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII. Born in 1485, she was the daughter of the dual Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. She was named after her great-grandmother Katherine of Lancaster (also with a K), a descendant of Edward III. At the age of three she was betrothed to the two-year-old Arthur, son of Henry VII. They married when she was sixteen, and within months she was a widow. Two years later she was betrothed to her 1 See Chapter 3 for more on the architecture of The Towers