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Archbishop Vernon Harcourt
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
On 5 November 1847, as the villagers of Bishopthorpe were burning Guy Fawkes in effigy, news came down from the Palace that their beloved archbishop had died. Only four days before, he had travelled into York, still hale and hearty, though in his ninety-first year, a patriarchal figure, majestic in physique and princely in appearance. No archbishop since Walter de Gray (1215-1255) had been Metropolitan of the Northern Province so long. His departure marked the end of an era. He was the last aristocratic archbishop of York. What a contrast to the archbishops who followed him! There was nothing aristocratic about Thomas Musgrave, whose father had been a Cambridge tailor, and who, before setting foot in Bishopthorpe as archbishop, had previously been there only to assist his father in measuring Vernon Harcourt for his clothes! Charles Thomas Longley came from an old family which lived on friendly terms with the Darnleys, but, though very dignified, he was no aristocrat. William Thomson, physically a magnificent figure, was the son of a tradesman, and never felt quite at home with the aristocracy, preferring the steel workers of Sheffield. With the death of Vernon Harcourt an era had, indeed, passed.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1967
References
Page 143 of note 1 Vernon Harcourt’s immediate predecessor, William Markham, had quite a long archiepiscopate—no less than thirty years.
Page 144 of note 1 For these and the other Harcourts mentioned, see D.N.B.
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Page 146 of note 2 Because of his action, the king turned his back upon the archbishop at the next levee.
Page 147 of note 1 D.N.B.
Page 147 of note 2 I take this from a newspaper cutting of uncertain source which was quoting from the Wharfedale and Airedale Observer. The cutting in question was lent to me by a parishioner of Harewood.
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