LITMIR.BIZ

      FROM BOTH SIDES of the river and from every parish in the city, from St Denis, St Cuthbert, St Martin-cum-Gregory, St Mary Senior and St Mary Junior, from the Shambles and from Tanner Row, the people of York had been flowing for the past two hours in a continuous stream towards the huge but still-unfinished Minster that brooded heavily over the city.

      The crowd completely blocked the two winding streets of Stonegate and Deangate which led into the yard. Boys, who had found perches above the crowd, could see nothing but a sea of heads covering the whole area. Burgesses, tradesmen, matrons with their numerous broods, cripples on crutches, servants, apprentices, hooded monks, soldiers in shirts of mail and beggars in rags were all crowded as close together as the stalks in a truss of hay. The light-fingered pickpockets were reaping a year’s harvest. Faces filled the upper windows like so many bunches of grapes. The damp, cold, misty twilight that enveloped the great building and the crowd standing in the mud seemed scarcely that of noon. It was as if the gathering was pressing close together for warmth.

      It was January 24th, 1328, and, in the presence of William de Melton, Archbishop of York and Primate of England, King Edward III, who was not yet sixteen, was marrying his cousin, Madam Philippa of Hainaut, who was barely more than fourteen.

      There was not an empty seat in the cathedral. They had all been reserved for the high dignitaries of the kingdom, members of the upper clergy and Parliament, the five hundred invited knights and the hundred tartan-clad Scottish nobles, who had come south to ratify the Peace Treaty. Soon the solemn mass would be celebrated, sung by a hundred and twenty choristers.

      Now, however, the first part of the ceremony, the marriage proper, was taking place outside the south door of the cathedral in view of the people, according to the ancient rite and peculiar custom of the archdiocese of York, as a reminder that marriage was a sacrament between husband and wife, affirmed by mutual vows taken in public, to which the priest was merely a witness.

      The mist had stained the red velvet of the canopy over the door with patches of damp, it had condensed on the bishops’ mitres, and had bedraggled the fur about the shoulders of the royal family assembled round the young couple.

      ‘Here I take thee, Philippa, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold, at bed and at board …’^{1 fn1}

      Coming from the King’s young lips and beardless face, his voice was surprisingly powerful, clear and vibrantly intense. Isabella, the Queen Mother, was struck by it, and so were Messire Jean of Hainaut,

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