Tag Archives: Church

Nova Cantaur

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The process of appointing a new Archbishop of Canterbury has been a very long one. Justin Welby announced his intention to step down on 12th November 2024. The See of Canterbury formally became vacant with effect from 7th January 2025.

Today, 325 days after Welby’s announcement, it has been revealed that Dame Sarah Mullally, currently Bishop of London, is his designated successor. Of course, that’s still not the end of the process: She won’t formally assume her new office until her confirmation of election on 28th January and her enthronement is scheduled for some time in March, which could mean the whole saga ends up taking nearly 500 days. This isn’t even the worst example of episcopal appointments taking too long — the Bishopric of Durham has been vacant since 29th February last year with no replacement in sight. Currently in this respect (and, embarrassingly, many others) the Roman church is outperforming the Anglican: Only 27 days passed between the death of Francis and the inaugural mass of Leo XIV.

When Benedict XVI resigned (for reasons quite similar to Welby), there was some speculation that Francis, already 76 and with some known health issues, had been deliberately chosen by the cardinals as someone who wouldn’t serve long. That he lived and held the crozier for another twelve years took many by surprise. The Church of England took the element of surprise out of the game fifty years ago by imposing mandatory retirement at age 70 (though a maximum of one year’s extention is allowed at the monarch’s discretion). As with judges and heralds, this means there must be consideration of an informal maximum appointment age if the candidate is to have a decent time in the job before being forced out. Mullally, who was born in 1962, will be the oldest at taking office since Coggan and the second-oldest since Lang. She will have only six years, maybe seven if extended, in which to make her mark.

The “big five” diocesan posts in the Church of England, the ones always represented among the Lords Spiritual in Parliament, are Canterbury, Durham, London, Winchester and York. Looking at the other Archbishops of Canterbury who have served since the end of Victoria’s reign, we see that F. Temple and Fisher were, like Mullally, translated from London; Welby from Durham; Davidson from Winchester; Williams from Monmouth; Carey from Bath & Wells; Carey from St Albans; Lang, W. Temple, Ramsey and Coggan from York. Clearly, it is by no means mandatory to have held one of the other top posts first but it certainly helps. Since Durham is vacant, Mullally’s only rivals here were Stephen Cottrell and Philip Mountstephen, both born before 1960 and thus realistically too old.

Given the sour note on which Welby departed, and the long time taken to find a successor, some commentators were wondering if the institution was looking for someone out of left field in order to clean the slate. That turned out not to be the case (whether or not it was ever the intention) as Mullally is, by my reckoning, rather the obvious choice.

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Balancing the Ball

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Almost from birth I have had a strong aversion to even thinking about rugby and this was not assuaged during the few terms at secondary school when I had to learn to play it. This article is not about the sport, but about the peculiarity of a Buckingham Palace Tweet.

The text of the Tweet says:

A message from His Majesty The King to @RedRosesRugby and Women's @RugbyCanada Team following today’s #RWC2025 final.
The use of “following” here is a bit strange, since the message was put out eight hours before the game had even started. The King’s message is shown as an attached image, depicted against the backdrop of a rugby pitch with the England flag at the top and the Canadian flag at the bottom.
My wife and I send our warmest good wishes to both the
England Red Roses and Canada Women's Rugby Team as
you prepare for your World Cup final.

What a remarkable achievement for both teams to have
reached this pinnacle of the sport. I know that supporters
on both sides of the Atlantic will be cheering with equal
and tremendous pride.

May the best team win, and may you both play with the
spirit of sportsmanship, determination and true grit that
makes rugby such a wonderful game to watch. Whatever
the result, you have already done your countries proud.

Good luck to you all.

Charles R.
The message, of course, has to congratulate both teams equally for getting to the final and then be studiously neutral as to which of them will win it. I would plaintively suggest that including the Canadian coat of arms alongside the British one would have helped in this regard.
The King acted in a third capacity today when he held an audience at Balmoral Castle with Anthony Albanese, whom I think he last met in person at CHOGM in Samoa. Albanese had already been in Britain for bilateral discussions with Sir Keir Starmer at Downing Street.
Earlier this year Their Majesties made a state visit on Britain’s behalf to the Italian Republic. The trip was supposed to include a state visit to the Holy See in Vatican City as well, but things went awry when Pope Francis fell seriously ill. Eventually they managed to get a low-key private meeting on their anniversary, but anything grander was beyond His Holiness’s health. He died twelve days later. About a week ago, a few newspapers were reporting was going ahead with Leo XIV as host. Today the Palace confirmed it. The exact date has not been given yet, only “late October”. This will be the fourth British royal visit to the Vatican this year, as the Prince of Wales attended Francis’s funeral and the Duke of Edinburgh attended Leo’s inaugural mass. Those aforementioned news articles said it would be Charles III’s final overseas journey for 2025. That is very disappointing as it means there won’t be a royal tour of New Zealand this year. Given that 2026 is a general election year — in which royal tours are conventionally avoided — and that the sovereign is already expected to fly to Canada, the United States and Antigua & Barbuda at various points, it might not happen now until 2027, a full three years after it was originally planned.

The Duchess of Kent’s Funeral

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The funeral took place today at Westminster Cathedral. It was not televised, but there was a press-pool camera outside which livestreamed to YouTube. Unfortunately the camera feed only covered the outside of the cathedral, and our view of the inside was limited to a handful of still images (which seem to be of guests filing in rather than the ceremony itself), and what could be seen from the outside once the doors were opened. Since it was broad daylight from the outside, it took a while for the camera’s light sensitivity to adjust so that proceedings inside were actually visible. This was briefly undone every time someone in a white cassock walked across the camera’s field of vision outside, so that the interior became a black void again. I will make here what few observations I can, mainly about flags and cars.

When viewed from the piazza, the flagpole on the left of the main door normally flies the flag of the Holy See (or Vatican City) while that on the right flies the Union Flag (or Jack). This time the Vatican flag flew full-mast throughout while the right pole flew the sovereign’s banner of arms at full-mast in his presence and the Union Flag at half-mast in his absence.

Katharine did not have the use of a banner of her own arms (the Duke of Kent impaling Sir William Worsley) so her coffin was draped in the generic royal banner with the ermine bordure. Attendees on departure could be seen clutching the printed order of service with Katharine’s royal cypher (the letter K topped by a coronet of crosses and strawberry leaves, curiously not the version shown on Wikimedia Commons). The order of service itself has not been released, but the royal family website has this article explaining events that took place. An announcement on the cathedral’s website uses Sodacan’s illustration of the late duchess’s heraldic achievement.

The doors opened as the piper was walking out, after which the national anthem was played. Two verses were sung, preceded by Gordon Jacob’s fanfare. It was played on the cathedral’s organ but I don’t think any brass players were present.

I took notes on which royals arrived in which car:

  • The Late Duchess herself was carried in the claret Jaguar hearse (no numberplate) also seen at Elizabeth II’s funeral.
  • The Duke & Duchess of Gloucester in OY20FUL (a dark red diesel Jaguar)
  • Prince & Princess Michael in a blue BMW (probably YK74MHB, electric)
  • The Duke & Duchess of York in KN74EFK (a green hybrid Range Rover)
  • Sir Tim Laurence & The Princess Anne in DK74CMV (a blue petrol Bentley Bentayga)
  • The Prince & Princess of Wales in KU25UPR (a blue hybrid Range Rover)
  • The Duke of Kent & Lady Helen Taylor in a blue Jaguar (registration not shown in footage)
  • The King and Sir Clive Alderton in the Bentley State Limousine (no numberplate needed).

The Duke of York looked a little confused on the way out, walking towards the cars, then back to the cathedral, then to the car again, as if not sure which one he was meant to be using. A short wheelbase bus was used for several other family members, including Lord & Lady Frederick Windsor.

The Duke of Kent, aged 89, understandably looked rather frail and shrivelled. His siblings Prince Michael and Princess Alexandra were both seen in wheelchairs at some points, then walking with canes at others. The Queen did not attend, having pulled out at the last minute due to a sudden bout of acute sinusitis. It is not confirmed if she will still be attending the imminent American state visit.

A Very Late Announcement

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Today is St George’s Day. It was delayed in the church calendar from its usual date of 23rd April so as not to clash with Easter, though this was not well publicised in advance and in practice not widely observed. The movement also means that St George’s Day clashes with Ed Balls Day!

I was disappointed to see no new appointments to the Order of the Garter either today or last Wednesday. Currently there are four vacancies among the ordinary Knights and Ladies Companion.

I was a little surprised to see that the News page on GOV.UK included “Prime Minister Liz Truss’s statement on the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II“, given that said prime minister resigned thirty months ago. Upon inspection of the Updates section, it seems the page was originally published with only the video link, and the transcription has now very belatedly been added. Amusingly, the note doesn’t even say “transcription”, but rather “translation”. Surely, Truss’s thoughts weren’t that incomprehensible, were they?

Canada, Carney and Commonwealth

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Sixty-two days after Trudeau announced his intention to step down, the leadership contest for the Liberal Party of Canada concluded last night. The winner, to the surprise of almost nobody, was former bank governor Mark Carney. He garnered 85.9% of the vote, albeit on only a 37% turnout, which really shows how uninspiring the other candidates must have been.

Carney’s Wikipedia page is already describing him as “Prime Minister Designate”, though the exact date at which the Governor General will formally appoint him to that office has not yet been decided. Canada tends to do governmental transitions at a rather slower pace than Britain does, with the time between leadership elections (or indeed general elections) and ministerial appointments often being measured in weeks rather than hours, but most indications are that this one will take place unusually quickly.

That the leadership election should eschew two experienced cabinet veterans in favour of someone who isn’t even an MP is a little surprising. In the Canadian constitution, as in the British, it is not illegal for a non-Parliamentarian to be appointed to a ministerial office, but it is considered improper and, above all, politically impractical. The nearest British precedent for Carney’s situation, and even then it is a very poor one, would be the much-discussed case of Sir Alec Douglas-Home disclaiming his peerages to jump back to the Commons in 1963. A more thorough comparison of these two situations may be worth a separate article.

Accession to the premiership will, of course, give Carney the right to constitutionally advise the King of Canada, including advising him to speak on Canadian matters.

For the moment, Charles continues in a state of political limbo. Following a long-established royal tradition, he must express himself in a cryptic, plausibly-deniable way, often through subtle sartorial cues.

Today is Commonwealth Day, which includes a service at Westminster Abbey and the publication of a message by His Majesty. As the position of Head of the Commonwealth has no formal powers at all, it is not subject to “advice” from the secretariat in the way that ministers advise their monarchs, and thus this is a rare opportunity for Charles to speak his own mind. Of course, the message is meant to broadly encompass all fifty-six-and-counting members of the organisation, so is still a poor venue for a determined diatribe about any particular one of them, so any comment about the defence of Canadian sovereignty must again be inferred rather than stated outright.

Sir Keir Starmer has been similarly cautious, Tweeting about “further deepening the UK-Canada relationship together” but not saying anything specific about what that would entail. It was also announced two days ago that the Department of National Defence had commissioned a fleet of new destroyers based on a British design, but this is likely unrelated to the state of relations with the White House.

Returning to more familiar territory, I notice that where the Commonwealth Day message has been quoted in photographic form, the coat of arms in the letterhead is now the new Timothy Noad illustration with the Tudor crown. Said illustration has also now replaced the earlier versions on the royal website as well. As I noted to Sodacan, the change was done at some point in the morning of Wednesday 5th March.

During the abbey service itself, I distinctly noticed Their Majesties sitting behind ornate wooden faldstools with what looked like the old-style royal arms of Canada on them. This is not in itself the cryptic clue that it might seem – they were donated by the Canada Club in 1949.

The most surprising recent development in the past few days has been the launch of another royal podcast. Whereas Camilla has been patronising The Queen’s Reading Room (of which a podcast is but one part) for some years, Charles has only just announced The King’s Music Room (probably named that way for congruence with his wife’s project), but it has already generated a lot more headlines. The format is very different from the Reading Room, being very explicitly the product of a partnership with Apple and only available to their subscribers, among which I am not.

A View of Prescott’s Funeral

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The Lord Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, died on 20th November last year but his funeral only took place today.

His can reasonably be considered the greatest political heavyweight (no pun intended) among all Hullensians of this or the previous century and his death brought about the highest concentration of political celebrities the city has likely ever seen.

The window of time in which I was able to visit the site in person was unfortunately brief, but I was able to catch the moment the hearse and limousine departed (they were indeed two Jaguars) and the guests came streaming out of the main doors of Hull Minster.

I did not see any of the current cabinet, but I was able to spot a few local grandees (flooding minister Emma Hardy, former Home Secretary Alan Johnson, former energy minister Graham Stuart and former EU Secretary Sir David Davis) as well as some national ones (former Welsh first minster Mark Drakeford, former LibDem leader Lord McNally and Lord Speaker Lord McFall of Alcluith).

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Heritage Day at Sunk Island

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Every summer the diminutive parish of Sunk Island puts on a heritage event, displaying billboards about the social and environmental history of the place, as well as selling a few mementos. I was invited to attend today’s to help with carrying some of the materials in and out.

The event is hosted at Holy Trinity Church, which ceased to operate as a place of worship in 1983 but remains open as a community centre (especially since the demolition of the village hall nearby). The history of the church itself (including the contest between rival Christian denominations for recruitment of parishioners) was a major theme of the display. The other big theme was the dredging up of the mud banks, followed by the cutting of new drains and the building of the sluice gates.

Some of the displays looked like they had been made many years ago and brought out unedited each time. There is a familiar style common to these kinds of displays by churches, village halls and primary schools in small settlements in rural Britain around the turn of the millennium. In particular I noticed a poster about the Crown Estate, which still referred to it paying for the civil list (as opposed to the sovereign grant).

What particularly piqued my interest was a patchwork quilt entitled “Treasures of Holderness”, each patch made by a member of a local sewing group. That by Sue Daniels showed the shield of arms of Holderness Borough Council. The full achievement was also shown on a wooden plaque affixed to the wall of the entrance hall. The borough itself, along with its governing council,was dissolved in 1996 and merged into the East Riding of Yorkshire unitary authority. Holderness no longer has a heraldic personhood distinct from the rest of the county but the old arms carry on informally by force of cultural inertia. None of the individual parishes seem to have arms individually granted.

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Garter Day 2024

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=l_GswdE9bbw

Today saw yet another of the royal public events that were too big to cancel – the procession of the Knights of the Garter to St George’s Chapel, Windsor. As with other big public events, I primarily experienced it in the form of the passive livestream on YouTube.

The cameras followed the knights, heralds and other officers as they marched on foot from the castle to the chapel, then went back again by carriage. They also filmed a large procession of what I assumed to be security cars following along the same stretch of road, which took something away from the splendour of the occasion. The cameras did not go inside the chapel, instead just showing the crowds and guards waiting outside for the duration, but the microphones (wherever the may have been positioned) were able to pick up a reasonable audio feed of the speeches, sermons and hymns.

The new members being installed today were royal lady the Duchess of Gloucester and knights companions the Lords Peach, Kakkar and Lloyd-Webber.

Stall plates and banners as photographed in The Dragon. Artist unknown.

Earlier this year, at the prompting of Baz Manning, I subscribed to The Dragon, the community newsletter of St George’s Chapel. Although this mainly covers religious events, it is also often where knights’ armorial bearings are leaked for the first time. The edition of 9th June included photographs of the newly-delivered stall plates for Lady Ashton of Upholland and Lord Patten of Barnes, while that of 16th June showed the banners of Lords Peach and Kakkar. Apparently Peach’s must have been granted fairly recently, for the article claims that the sword is a reference to him carrying Curtana at the coronation last year. That means Lloyd-Webber is the only current member who remains at present armorially anonymous.

UPDATE (20th June)

The video I originally linked at the top of the article has been removed from Associated Press’s YouTube channel. All the other channels that also uploaded the same video seem to have removed it as well. For now I have replaced it with an amateur video by David Dumbrăveanu. The Daily Mail curiously still seems to have the full video up, and most other channels have at least small snippets.

Liberating a musical relic

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In discussions of artistic and intellectual property it is often remarked that “There is nothing new under the sun.” in reference to the frequency with which works under copyright turn out themselves to have been copied or derived from older material which may or may not have been public domain already – such as popular film scores taking cues from classical compositions.

One example is Howard Shore’s In Dreams, part of his soundtrack to The Fellowship of the Ring. The melody, especially the first seven notes, came from the 1901 hymn This Is My Father’s World.

The lyrics were written by Presbyterian minister Maltie Babcock and set to music by composer Franklin Sheppard. Despite the musical similarity, thematically they are entirely different: Babcock’s lyrics are mainly about the beauty of natural creation, with a few explicit references to scripture, and obviously multiple references to the Christian deity. Shore’s song, in common with everything else in Jackson’s films, avoids any direct mention of Eru Ilúvatar. Principally the song seems to be about perseverance through adversity and the emotional pain of separation from close friends. Given how the story ends, it could be interpreted as anticipating reunification after death. That the song should allude to spiritual principles without actually naming a real religion is in keeping with Tolkien’s conception of the book (albeit he was Catholic not Presbyterian).

This was the favourite childhood church song of prominent atheist Penn Jillette, who even parodied it for the opening them of his podcast. Personally I only discovered the hymn when searching backwards from the FOTR score, and on further investigation it does not seem to have made much of a cultural penetration outside North America. Searching for it on YouTube mainly brings up American religious schools.

Given the song’s publication and Babcock’s death both occurred in 1901, with Sheppard dying in 1930, the music and lyrics have both been in the public domain for some time, so I was a little surprised to see that Wikimedia Commons did not have an audio file. I set about creating one, based on a photograph they did have of a printout of the sheet music. It had been a long time since last I used MuseScore, but in about an hour I had relearned enough to copy out the page, render it as a sound file and upload it. Obviously mine is instrumental only as MuseScore does not have a singing function and I did not wish to record my own voice for this.

EXTERNAL LINKS

  • This Is My Father’s World, performed by pupils of Fountainview Academy, British Columbia. They really seem to be leaning into the LOTR comparisons with the rowboats and the fallen leaves.
  • Extract from LOTR making-of documentary, showing the recording of In Dreams.
  • Rendition by Sean Holshouser. Twelve years and forty videos later (many of them being actual Christian songs), this remains by far his most popular.