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Lack of (National) Compassion

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26/01/1861

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During a recent spell of very bad weather, the Guardians of the Peterborough Poor Law Union had granted temporary outdoor relief to some able-bodied agricultural labourers who had been unable to work through no fault of their own. as a result, the National Board had requested that they be furnished with a statement showing the number of persons relieved that were at variance to the General Prohibitory Order. They also requested particulars of the number of persons in each family and the amount of relief that had been afforded. At this Saturday's meeting of the Board of Governors of the Peterborough Poor Law Union, the clerk read a letter that had come from the National Poor Law Board. It stated that 'having regard to the accommodation afforded by the workhouse, and to the number of inmates therein, the Board thought it desirable that the Guardians should, in future, should offer to relieve the necessities of this class of person in the workhouse. They should apply that test of destitution so long as circumstances permitted with regards to each application.' In other words, 'rules is rules', and using common sense and compassion are not allowed. (Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury)

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.

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Burial of Mary, Queen of Scots

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30/07/1587

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On 8 February 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay Castle. There her body stayed, embalmed and sealed in a lead coffin, until this day when it was moved, in the dead of night, to Peterborough. On the instructions of Queen Elizabeth I, the burial was a formal affair fit for a queen. The coffin, followed by the royal standard of Scotland, was moved in procession from the Bishop's Palace to the cathedral. As well as the nobility, the Bishop and Dean of Peterborough and the Bishop of Lincoln, 100 poor widows dressed in black walked in procession following the coffin. Following a sermon preached by the Bishop of Lincoln, the dean oversaw Mary's interment. A magnificent funeral banquet, paid for by Queen Elizabeth, followed in the Bishop's Palace. The cost of the whole burial is said to be over £300 - a vast sum. In 1612 Mary's body was exhumed when her son, King James I of England, ordered she be re-interred in Westminster Abbey, in a chapel opposite the tomb of Elizabeth I. (Carnell, Geoffrey, The Bishops of Peterborough, RJL Smith & Associates, 1993; Gunton, Symon, The History of the Church of Peterborough, ed. Symon Patrick, 1990; People of Peterborough, Peterborough Museum Publications, 2009)

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.

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