A duke's progress

At Canterbury Cathedral the other day, we were interested to come across the tomb of King Henry IV and his second & last queen, Joan of Navarre. A lady who had had nine children by her first husband, the Duke of Brittany, and who was imprisoned for a while after Henry's death on charges of witchcraft and poisoning. Subsequently freed and restored to lands and reputation by the then dying Henry V, son of Henry IV by his first marriage.

I was struck by the appearance and presentation of the pair (complete with recumbent stone versions of the canopies sometimes included over wooden thrones), to all appearances a successful merchant and his wife.

Presumably the paint job is relatively new, but we were not sure about the stone work. Has it been touched up by restorers at some point?

All a far cry from the Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, to whom the following words are attributed:

First, heaven be the record to my speech!

In the devotion of a subject's love,

Tendering the precious safety of my prince,

And free from other misbegotten hate,

Come I appellant to this princely presence.

Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,

And mark my greeting well; for what I speak

My body shall make good upon this earth,

Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.

Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,

...

He had clearly moved on from the dashing days of his youth. 

We also wondered, given that the Puritans generally took a dim view of decorative sculpture in churches, unless it was decorating their own tombs, what the line was on this sort of thing. Did patriotism trump puritanism?

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