When Henry viii’s commissioners launched their onslaught against English shrines, cults centred on holy images rather than saintly bones attracted particular opprobrium. In the former category was the statue of Our Lady of Grace at Ipswich, claimed to have been miraculously dug up in the early fourteenth century. In 1538 the image was publicly burnt at Chelsea, together with others including Our Lady of Walsingham – the suggestion that the Ipswich statue survives at Nettuno is dismissed. The authors suggest that the statue might have been Romanesque and, given that it was inflammable, that it was of wood.
Bereft of its image, the chapel in which it stood was soon demolished. Its approximate site was preserved in the name Lady Lane, now a dreary cul-de-sac. ‘Gracechurch’, formerly the twelfth-century church of All Saints, stood just outside Ipswich’s West Gate, itself torn down in 1781. Using the evidence of tenement boundaries and Ogilby’s detailed map of 1674 the authors have fixed the chapel’s precise location, and there is useful discussion of the adjoining tenement history.
The authors trace the development of cult and chapel – the two go hand in hand. The cult was boosted by Blanche of Lancaster’s visit in 1402 and, a century later, by a pilgrimage by Elizabeth of York, in a desperate but unsuccessful tour of Marian shrines in search of a cure for the ailing Arthur, Prince of Wales. Then in 1510 the influential Dr John Bailey was installed as Rector of St Matthew’s, the parish in which the chapel was located, and it was during his incumbency that fifteen almshouses were founded in Lady Lane, ‘besides Our Lady of Grace’. But the greatest boost to the shrine’s fortunes came in 1515 when the 12-year-old daughter of Sir Robert Wentworth experienced fits that were cured when she was taken to the statue that she had seen in a vision. She thus fulfilled a somewhat similar role to that of 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes in 1858 or of the young Portuguese children at Fatima in 1917. An influential resident, Sir Robert Curson, enthusiastically adopted the role of impresario, seconded by Dr Bailey, who announced in a sermon that ‘syth that England was crystened were never schewed suche meracles’ – magnificent hyperbole given that the only recorded cure at the shrine was that of the Wentworth girl herself. The book includes a transcription of Curson’s account of her antics in the chapel. The new fame of the shrine attracted further prestigious visitors: Katharine of Aragon and Cardinal Wolsey in 1517 and Henry viii in 1522. Only sixteen years later the cult was brought to a sudden end.
The chapel was partially demolished forthwith, but the authors have demonstrated that some elements survived elsewhere. A sixteenth-century addition to the nearby church of St Nicholas incorporated Romanesque architectural fragments, including a tympanum bearing a dedicatory inscription to All Saints, the chapel’s original dedication. If the date of sculpture and inscription is correct this is evidence almost too good to be true. Another highly significant survival is the font at the church of St Matthew. Blatchly and MacCulloch convincingly analyse its rich imagery, which includes several allusions to the Maid of Ipswich; they argue that it was commissioned by Dr Bailey both to celebrate the cult that he had so successfully promoted, and to emphasise his own role in that process. They also explore the power struggle between John Bailey and Wolsey, who appropriated Gracechurch immediately after Bailey’s death, imposing his 15-year-old bastard son as rector – all this in the context of the foundation of Wolsey’s short-lived Cardinal College at Ipswich.
This highly readable and attractively produced book covers a good deal of ground despite its modest size, written in an engaging style. There are informative footnotes and exemplary references.
