Historian, author and tour guide Martyn Taylor looks into Bury St Edmunds’ royal connections through history

Royal patronage of Beodericsworth started with King Sigerberht, stepson of Sutton Hoo burial king, Raedwald.

Sigeberht founded a monastery circa 633AD, so it was right and proper for King Edmund (martyred 869AD) to be buried here, lending his name to become Bury St Edmunds.

The royal connection continued with another King Edmund of the West Saxons in 945AD, who gave an area of land known as the Banleuca (modern-day Bury St Edmunds) to the abbey.

Then King Canute founded a rotunda church here in 1020, which would eventually become the magnificent Abbey of St Edmund, housing the shrine of the first patron saint of England, Edmund.

The second English patron saint was the pious Edward the Confessor, who came to the town in 1042, humbly walking the last mile on foot to Edmund’s shrine. Edward gave to the Abbey lands belonging to his mother, Emma of Normandy, which would become known as The Liberty of St Edmund, aka the county of West Suffolk.

It was during the Middle Ages that the shrine of St Edmund really attracted royal visitors.

The 12th century civil war in England between the rightful heir to the throne, Matilda daughter of Henry 1st and his nephew Stephen of Blois, would be eventually sorted out after 18 years when Matilda’s son Henry II rightfully took the throne because Stephen’s son, heir presumptive Prince Eustace, died in mysterious circumstances after threatening to despoil the Abbey of St Edmund.

It was Henry’s sons Richard and John who were to have the greatest association with Bury. Richard the ‘Lionheart’ paid homage at Edmund’s shrine en-route on the third crusade, but returning was captured by Leopold of Austria, who then ransomed him. Those collecting for the ransom were given short shrift by Abbot Samson, a personal friend of the king, when they came begging at Bury’s Abbey. “The needs of St Edmund are far greater,” Samson said!

However, it was Richard’s brother, John aka ‘Lackland’, who visited the shrine on more than one occasion, starting in 1199, soon after ascending the throne. On this visit the Benedictine monks of Bury Abbey thought the new king was to present some precious gift to the shrine but, alas, all they got off the tight-fisted John was some silk-cloth he had scrounged off the Abbey’s Sacrist.

Four years later he returned and in fact did present some jewels his mother Queen Eleanor had given for the shrine, only to take them back soon after.

But John’s most famous connection with Bury is that of Magna Carta, because this feeble, pathetic example of kingship was compelled to agree to the famous barons assembly for ‘the Great Charter’ that met in October 1214, or they would make war on him.

Magna Carta sealed in June 1215; however it didn’t take long for John to renege on it, something he did a few months later. Whether the blessed Saint Edmund had anything to do with John’s death is questionable, but in October 1216 he died from dysentery at Newark after losing his baggage-train, including his valuable jewels, while crossing the Wash. You didn’t trifle with Edmund!

John’s son Henry III visited Bury on several occasions, even holding a Parliament here in 1272, while his son Edward I visited in 1289 and also held a Parliament here in 1296. This strong king expelled the Jews from England and the remnants that remained in Bury after their massacre in 1190 by the townspeople.

Edward II was in Bury in 1326, a year before his grim end, and Edward III, son of the second, also visited the shrine. His grandson King Richard II and his queen Anne of Bohemia spent 10 days as guests of the Abbey, however he was at odds with the election of Edmund De Bromefield as abbot, eventually sending him to the tower. Consequently the Abbey was without an abbot for five years!

Perhaps one of the most colourful visits by a monarch was at Christmas 1433 by that of Henry VI who, at 12 years old, was met on Newmarket Heath by the local Bury gentry and aldermen, all clothed in scarlet robes. Escorted back to the Abbey, he nearly bankrupted it as he and his entourage stayed until Easter 1434!

In 1447, Henry and his wife Margaret of Anjou were back in Bury, this time to charge his uncle and former regent Duke Humphrey Plantagenet with treason. The good duke died in mysterious circumstances at the hospital of St Saviours while under arrest by Parliament. A vestige of Henry and Margaret can be seen as part of the magnificent Angel roof of St Mary’s.

The first of the Tudors, Henry VII came to Bury in 1486. He was the father of four surviving children, the youngest Mary Rose Tudor/Brandon aka the Duchess of Suffolk, Queen of France. She died in 1533 and was buried in the Abbey Church in a splendid alabaster tomb. At the dissolution in 1539 she was moved to a rather plain tomb, which can be found today in St Mary’s Church. Her niece was Elizabeth I, who came to Bury on her Royal Progress in 1578 through Suffolk, where she was lavishly entertained at the Abbey’s Abbot’s Palace before going on to Sir William Drury’s Hawstead Place after four days.

James I/VI a great supporter of Bury, conferring on it three charters plus cartloads of timber after the disastrous fire of Bury in 1608 almost certainly passed through Bury on one of his several visits to Newmarket, where he enjoyed the racing.

Charles II came to Bury in 1668 on the same mission.

It wasn’t until December 1904 that the next royal visitor came to Bury. King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra arrived by royal train and were taken to Culford Hall as guests of Earl Cadogan for five days of shooting. On December 17 they arrived in the town bedecked for the occasion and thronged with cheering crowds. They spent some time in St Mary’s receiving a loyal address from the mayor, Mr Edward William Lake, before travelling back to London.

In 1961, Queen Elizabeth II visited Bury and again for her Golden Jubilee in 2002. April 9, 2009, saw a very special visit from the monarch and Prince Philip to Bury to give out the Maundy gift, a set of four coins to the value of today’s 10p. Each recipient, 83 men and 83 women, were given a white purse containing the coins for each year of her life, nominated by Christian clergy of various denominations in the diocese where the service is held.

Finally, the sad death of Britain’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, saw Prince Charles who had ‘unveiled’ the wonderful cathedral millennium tower in 2005 ascend the throne as Charles III. At the tower he said in his own words, ‘a beacon for the millennium’.