The Dukes of Arundel Cathedral

[00:00:00]Sussex, the home of Banoffee pie, where both Mick Jagger and Blake were arrested, although not at the same time.

[00:00:08]Of which King George V probably probably didn't say bugger Bognor. And as you can see, it's absolutely horrible. Where's the graffiti? Where is the urban degradation?

[00:00:22]Today, I go to Arundel Cathedral.

[00:00:25]Well, at least the town is bound to look like Harlow.

[00:00:29]Oh.

[00:00:32]Perhaps the cathedral will look like a pudding.

[00:00:34]Ah ah ah ah ah ah.

[00:00:35]>> [laughter] >> The name Arundel seems to sit in my mind in exactly the same place as this place.

[00:00:43]And I don't think I'm that wrong.

[00:00:45]It's new-ish.

[00:00:47]It's Catholic.

[00:00:49]It's Arundel Cathedral.

[00:00:52]>> [music] [music] [music] >> My name is Oliver Hawkins, and we are in Arundel Cathedral, and I was married in this church 60 years ago.

[00:01:20]>> Wow.

[00:01:20]>> It's it just been upgraded, as it were, to cathedral status, because when it was first built, it was just a very, very large parish church for a very small Catholic parish.

[00:01:31]And the reason for that was the 15th Duke of Norfolk, Henry, who was brought up in the castle here. Very large, very devout Catholic family.

[00:01:40]>> So, that's the that's the Duke of >> Norfolk.

[00:01:42]>> Norfolk.

[00:01:42]>> Duke of Norfolk, but based in Sussex.

[00:01:45]His father died when he was very young.

[00:01:47]And when he came of age in 1868, he decided to do what he knew his father had planned to do, which was to build a very large Catholic church. He in fact [snorts] went on and built all sorts of other churches and did huge restoration work on the castle. But this was his first project. So he was just 21 years old.

[00:02:09]And he picked a very experienced architect, uh Joseph Aloysius Hansom, who was coming towards the end of a career designing not just churches. He did a great classic town hall in Birmingham and various other things. But his specialism in a way was Catholic churches. He was Catholic. And so the two of them, this elderly architect and this very young man, sat down together and decided what kind of church to build.

[00:02:35]>> Hansom is the same Hansom who invented the Hansom cab.

[00:02:39]>> And the first thing was to find a site.

[00:02:41]And although the Duke owned most of the land all around here, and the particular spot here that he wanted was an orchard, and it belonged to the local Anglican church. It was glebe land. And in those days, very different now, in those days there was considerable suspicion between the denominations. So he bought it without letting on what he was going to use it for.

[00:03:03]And the people over the road were a little bit miffed to find this huge rival building being put up, but too late to do anything.

[00:03:10]>> Hang on a second. So I thought you said there was a there was a Catholic chapel here before. There was a >> There was always a chapel inside the castle.

[00:03:17]>> Ah.

[00:03:18]>> Because the Norfolks, uh despite all the difficulties of penal times, had always managed to remain Catholics. Uh if you were very, very grand aristocrat, you could just about get by still being a Catholic, which they were.

[00:03:31]Um but in 1829 there'd been the Catholic Emancipation Act, and that meant really all the obstacles to being a Catholic had had had gone. They got this spot. Uh they decided on what I guess you'd call early Gothic, slightly French Gothic style, very elegant. Uh it's Bath stone brought round from Wiltshire and then up the river on great barges because up until oh, the 1920s or 30s, Arundel was a working port.

[00:04:01]>> Yeah.

[00:04:01]>> So, you could um bring stuff in very easily. I say easily, but it was still kind of medieval. I mean, we have photos of teams of men with pulleys and hoists getting huge blocks of stone onto wagons and big shire horses dragging it up the hill here. And then here, there would have just been a forest of wooden scaffolding and hundreds of men chipping away with chisels.

[00:04:24]>> The finish. It's a very smooth, very fine finish.

[00:04:27]>> It's a very smooth finish. For the very decorative pieces, probably these angels for instance, they were probably made by a specialist carving company in London and sent down on the train. There was a train. That was the one technological advance that I think in the 1860s, that was Arundel station opened. But a lot of it would have been certainly finished on site. And there's a detail which is these um the bottoms of these, I think they're called corbels, are unfinished. And we have no idea why. Just in the crude block form, which would then have been normally finished off.

[00:05:03]>> And you can see the chisel marks.

[00:05:05]>> see the chisel marks.

[00:05:06]>> And I like it because it reminds you how much work is involved turning that into that.

[00:05:11]>> That. Yeah. [clears throat] >> It's all Bathstone, but the exterior is from a different quarry to the interior, which I guess is slightly softer and smoother. And then the floor is Hopton Wood stone with bands of Purbeck marble just to give a bit of variation. The ceiling, you could hardly notice, but in fact it's a mixture of Bathstone and chalk from the Downs, what we'd call clunch. Probably for lightness, economy and lightness because it's not load-bearing. Um but it does mean that there's a slight variation in all the textures, so it doesn't look too bland.

[00:05:47]>> That's >> As far as the design is concerned, the intention was to have a very plain nave, um, this whole central bit, no decoration in the windows, very little decoration on the walls. And the idea is to give an impression of depth and height and lead your eye forward to where all the action is, at the altar end. When it was first used, I mean, right up until well into the 20th century, you'd have a very dark, mysterious, um, altar area, um, with the priest with his back to the congregation.

[00:06:21]>> Yeah.

[00:06:22]>> Whereas now, it's changed and the altar's been brought forward, um, and everything is very much, um, participation.

[00:06:30]But once you get to the to the, uh, transepts, yeah, you then start getting some splendid >> alcoholic >> stained glass window. That's a particularly good window. That That is, we think, by the Victorian stained glass artist Nathaniel Wood Westlake. But the rest of the glass is by a company from Birmingham. That one is scenes from the life of Our Lady. But this one is the first patron saint of the cathedral.

[00:06:58]Well, I shouldn't call it the cathedral because in those days, as I say, it was just a parish church.

[00:07:02]>> W- w- w- Wait. So, so you're saying that when this window was put in, this was not yet a cathedral?

[00:07:09]>> only in 1965 that the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton was created.

[00:07:16]And so they needed a cathedral church for it. Previously, we were all part of Southwark. And this was big enough and it had the connection with the >> It's part of Southwark.

[00:07:25]>> This was Well, Southwark Diocese.

[00:07:27]>> Yes. Yep. Okay.

[00:07:28]>> I mean, it must have been massive.

[00:07:30]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:31]>> Right down to the sea. But the gentleman we have here, who's looks like a very severe Victorian schoolmaster, >> Yeah.

[00:07:38]>> and in fact, was an Italian 16th century saint called Philip Neri, who was famous for his sense of humor, which you wouldn't get from the image.

[00:07:48]But the windows show scenes from his life.

[00:07:51]And he was chosen by Duke Henry because he was the founder of the order of the Oratorian order.

[00:08:00]And Duke Henry had been sent to school at the Oratory in Birmingham, and there he'd been taught by John Henry Newman who became his great friend and mentor for the rest of Newman's life.

[00:08:13]And so I think it was a kind of homage to Newman choosing the founder of the Oratorians as the patron saint.

[00:08:22]>> So wouldn't Newman at that point, when he was teaching, have converted to Catholicism >> Yes, yes, because he'd converted I think in 1845, and this would have been significantly later. I think Gladstone had suggested that it wasn't possible to be a loyal Englishman and a loyal Catholic at the same time. And so Newman wanted to repudiate that and asked the young Duke, who would sort of been very young, whether he could use his name as it were to to say this is a letter to the Duke of Norfolk, kind of reassuring him I suppose that you could indeed be a a Catholic and a and a decent Englishman. These are scenes from the life of Philip Neri. He really he just looked after people. He was very very devout, but he I shouldn't say but but at the same time he was he was he was clearly great fun to be with.

[00:09:11]He was had a great sense of humor. So there's a scene there where he's looking after some little street children as they're breaking up a fight in a football match. And then next up on the left he's looking after some vagrant, patching up someone's someone's feet.

[00:09:27]And then the scene alongside he he had asked he eventually became a priest. He wasn't to begin with but he eventually became a priest and asked if he could be sent on the missions. And they very sensibly said, "No, you're much more useful here." And so he spent his very long, happy life in Rome just going around really looking after people and advising people and set up this order of priests called the Oratorians, a sort of character. But of course for the Victorians, they wanted gravitas, so you get this very severe-looking chap. He looks terribly severe.

[00:09:59]>> I I think I just see a little bit of laugh about the eyes. Is that my imagination?

[00:10:03]>> I'd like to think that. I've never spotted it so far.

[00:10:07]>> It could just be me.

[00:10:08]>> Yeah.

[00:10:09]But then you see then he was ousted because in 1970, 40 English and Welsh Catholic martyrs were canonized and one of them was Philip Howard, who we'll go over and have a look at, who was the our local boy. He was the direct ancestor of Duke Henry and indeed of the Norfolks who are still here.

[00:10:31]>> So he was a Duke of Norfolk?

[00:10:32]>> So he he would have been, but his father had forfeited the title. The in in the Elizabethan times, well in fact for quite a long time the Norfolks were constantly getting into trouble, being involved in plots and schemes and things. They were great sort of political >> Because because of the Catholic thing?

[00:10:50]>> Well, not really, no. Um his father had been executed for treason and his father was a devout Anglican as it happened.

[00:10:59]But he had been executed because Queen Elizabeth, who was very understandably neurotic about her the safety of her throne because it was being as it were threatened on all sides.

[00:11:11]And so his father was executed because he failed to let Queen Elizabeth know that he was going to marry Mary Queen of Scots. So that got him executed. And then Philip um who had been brought up an Anglican, converted to Catholicism.

[00:11:29]And for Queen Elizabeth, this inevitably meant she couldn't trust him.

[00:11:36]And now, of course, it's easier for us to think, you know, why on earth should she have minded, but, you know, she knew that the Catholic King of Spain was just waiting for an opportunity to invade, and so she felt she couldn't trust him.

[00:11:49]And also, her advisers will have said, "Look, this family has form.

[00:11:53]You know, several of them have been executed for treason over the years.

[00:11:57]So, he he he was told basically that unless he recanted, he would have to stay in a cell in the Tower of London, not allowed to see any of his friends or family, but he was allowed his dog.

[00:12:10]And that must have been a terrific uh consolation to him.

[00:12:15]>> Do you know, I looked at that and didn't notice the dog.

[00:12:18]>> And we don't know what the dog was called. I'd love to find out, but there's no way of finding out.

[00:12:23]And he couldn't leave his cell, but the dog could, so the dog could run around the >> Oh, oh, hang on. So, the dog was in prison with him.

[00:12:29]>> Yeah.

[00:12:30]He was he was >> Okay.

[00:12:31]>> He was the companion.

[00:12:33]I mean, actually, what people don't realize is that you were allowed staff. You could be in, as it were, officially solitary confinement in your cell, but you were still allowed staff, because they couldn't have conceived of how you would manage without staff.

[00:12:48]But the conditions were so bad that the staff tended not to last very long.

[00:12:53]>> But but he but he but just to be clear, he was related to this area, because even though he'd lost the title of the Duke of Norfolk because of his father.

[00:13:02]>> the Earl of Arundel.

[00:13:03]>> I see.

[00:13:04]>> Um It was all very complicated how much how many of your titles you lost in these >> I did I did I did look at the family tree, and it it's a bit cross-eyed. It makes you go cross-eyed.

[00:13:14]>> Yeah. He would have been Duke of Norfolk had his father not lost the title. So, he was Earl of Arundel.

[00:13:21]But, of course, being very grand was no protection if you were suspect politically. And so, he spent almost 11 years in the Tower of London until he died.

[00:13:31]>> What was the reason that he was arrested and why why was he arrested?

[00:13:34]>> Simply because he'd become a Catholic.

[00:13:36]It was It was known that >> known that he'd become a Catholic.

[00:13:39]>> His wife first of all became Catholic and then she persuaded him. And then the turning point for him was that a a Jesuit priest had been captured and was made to be kind of interrogated in the Tower of London by a panel of Anglican bishops and divines with the intention of showing how foolish the Jesuit priest was. But actually he was very heroic and he so impressed Philip that Philip then converted to Catholicism knowing that it would get him into trouble. And the big mistake he made was he he thought he'd he'd go to France. He'd flee to France. And so it looks as if he was running away which indeed he was. Um so that didn't look good.

[00:14:26]>> Would the Duke of Norfolk have lands in France? Is it >> No, they had land in Yorkshire, Yorkshire and Norfolk.

[00:14:34]>> it could only be because he was a Catholic and he's going there as as like a refugee. Yeah.

[00:14:39]>> Yes. And and and and people did.

[00:14:42]Um but he was caught and brought back and then spent the rest of the time in the Tower of London.

[00:14:48]And then there were various uh sort of dirty tricks. So they found someone who claimed that he had prayed for the success of the Spanish Armada which wasn't actually true but looked bad.

[00:15:00]So eventually he died. Um >> W- was he W- was he put to death?

[00:15:06]>> He No, he he just died really.

[00:15:09]Some people thought he was poisoned but it's more likely it was just 11 years of very very harsh treatment and he just got weaker and weaker and weaker.

[00:15:18]>> And succumbed.

[00:15:19]>> And and succumbed and And his body was in the Tower of London until something like 25 years later when Queen Elizabeth was dead his what his widow who survived him by something like 35 years, she got back her position and King James and then King Charles were much more sympathetic to her and so she was then allowed to have his body brought down to Arundel.

[00:15:44]And it was in the castle chapel in the Fitzalan chapel until the until he was canonized and the dedication of the cathedral changed from Philip Neri to Philip Howard.

[00:15:57]And at that point his remains were put in the altar here.

[00:16:01]>> So when was he canonized?

[00:16:03]>> So he was canonized in 1970.

[00:16:06]>> Oh it's >> So very recently, yes.

[00:16:08]>> So what what would cause that to happen?

[00:16:11]>> I don't know. It was for for for some reason 40 English and Welsh Catholic martyrs were canonized at the same time.

[00:16:21]>> Oh.

[00:16:21]>> I mean the canonization's interesting cuz sometimes it's fairly brisk, you know, quite soon after someone's died, but more often it takes a very long time. And often it will depend on there being a a kind of group or an individual pushing for it.

[00:16:35]And so clearly there were people in the Catholic Church in England who who felt that there was this group of people uh who'd all suffered martyrdom pretty much the same time, mostly in Tudor times.

[00:16:49]And that they were worthy of being canonized.

[00:16:53]>> And is he as a saint is he associated with any miracles? Are there any tremendous tales?

[00:16:59]>> Presume not that I'm aware of. There must be because there's some something in the procedure for becoming a saint requires there to be miracles.

[00:17:09]>> What seems to have happened is that a bunch of people got together and said prayers and eventually someone somewhere, a woman, was miraculously cured. Now, speaking as an atheist, I think all miracles are sus, but this does seem particularly sus. Not really sure it matters, though.

[00:17:26]>> And And his relics are here in the church.

[00:17:28]>> are there.

[00:17:29]>> In in there.

[00:17:29]>> In there.

[00:17:30]>> Right.

[00:17:30]>> And when I take school children around, they sometimes ask if the dog's bones are there as well.

[00:17:35]>> [laughter] >> That's a very good question.

[00:17:36]>> We think not.