West window a memorial to parishioners who fell in the First World War, this window was designed by Messrs. Jones and Willis of Birmingham and depicts four soldier saints.
St. George (d. 23 April 303),was a Christian who is accepted as a saint in Christianity and Islam. According to traditional rumours, he was a soldier in the Roman army The legend of Saint George and the Dragon was first recorded in the 11th century, in a Georgian source. It reached Catholic Europe in the 12th century. The tradition tells that a fierce dragon was causing panic at the city of Silene, Libya, at the time George arrived there. In order to prevent the dragon from devastating people from the city, they gave two sheep each day to the dragon, but when the sheep were not enough they were forced to sacrifice humans instead of the two sheep. The human to be sacrificed was elected by the city’s own people and one time the king’s daughter was chosen to be sacrificed but no one was willing to take her place. George saved the girl by slaying the dragon with a lance. The king was so grateful that he offered him treasures as a reward for saving his daughter’s life, but George refused it and instead he gave these to the poor. The people of the city were so amazed at what they had witnessed that they became Christians and were all baptized. George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia’s city wall, on 23 April 303 as a result of the Diocletianic or Great Persecution which was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.
King Alfred. (Also known as Alfred the Great),(848/9 – 26 October 899) was king of Wessex from 871 to c. 886 and king of the Anglo-Saxons from c. 886 to 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. His father died when he was young, and three of Alfred’s brothers reigned in turn before him. After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with the Vikings, creating what was known as the Danelaw in the North of England. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. He defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England.Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be conducted in Old English rather than Latin and improving the legal system and military structure and his people’s quality of life. He was given the epithet “the Great” during and after the Reformation in the 16th century
The cake legend
A legend tells how when Alfred first fled to the Somerset Levels, he was given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, left him to watch some wheaten cakes she had left cooking on the fire.Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom, Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn and was roundly scolded by the woman upon her return. There is no contemporary evidence for the legend, but it is possible that there was an early oral tradition. The first time that it was actually written was about 100 years after Alfred’s death
Queen Margaret of Scotland (also known as Saint Margaret of Scotland)c. 1045 – 16 November 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess and a Scottish queen. Margaret was sometimes called “The Pearl of Scotland”. Born in exile in the Kingdom of Hungary, Margaret and her family returned to the Kingdom of England in 1057, but fled to the Kingdom of Scotland following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. By the end of 1070, Margaret had married King Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming Queen of Scots. She was a very pious Roman Catholic.
Under Queen Margaret’s leadership Church councils promoted Easter communion and, much to joy of the working-class, abstinence from servile work on a Sunday. Margaret founded churches, monasteries and pilgrimage hostels and established the Royal Mausoleum at Dunfermline Abbey with monks from Canterbury. She was especially fond of Scottish saints and instigated the Queen’s Ferry over the Forth so that pilgrims could more easily reach the Shrine of St. Andrew.
Mass was changed from the many dialects of Gaelic spoken throughout Scotland to the unifying Latin. By adopting Latin to celebrate the Mass she believed that all Scots could worship together in unity, along with the other Christians of Western Europe. Many people believe that in doing this, it was not only Queen Margaret’s goal to unite the Scots, but also the two nations of Scotland and England in an attempt to end the bloody warfare between the two countries
and The Black Prince. Edward, prince of Wales (1330-1376), known from Tudor times as the Black Prince, was the oldest son of Edward lll and of Philippa of Hainault
He is remembered as a great war captain. At Crécy in 1346, when he was only sixteen, he fought very gallantly alongside his father. At Poitiers in 1356, he won his greatest victory, capturing the French king, Jean II, and his rich baggage.
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