The Penance of Eleanor, painted in 1900

 

The Duchess and the Necromancers

 

By Nancy Bilyeau

 

“On Monday, November 19th, 1441, the people of London lined the streets to observe an act of public penance. That morning a woman, perhaps forty years of age, bare-headed, plainly dressed, was rowed in a barge to Temple Stairs off the Thames. She stepped off the barge and proceeded to walk all the way to St. Paul’s Cathedral, carrying before her a wax taper of two pounds. Once she made it to St. Paul’s, she offered the taper to the High Altar.

 

The woman was Eleanor Cobham, mistress-turned-wife to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, only surviving uncle to the childless Henry VI and thus the heir to the throne. The duchess had been tried and condemned for heresy and witchcraft. This was the first of three days of ordered pilgrimages to churches, showing a “meke and a demure countenance.” Afterward, she would be forced to separate from her husband and live in genteel prison for the rest of her life….”

 

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