Why an archbishop's severed head is stored in a church in Suffolk
Who was Simon Sudbury?
Simon Theobald, as he was originally known, was born in Sudbury in and around 1316 before going on to study at the University of Paris.He became a chaplain under Pope Innocent VI in 1352, before taking on roles including the Chancellor of Salisbury and the Bishop of London and served King Edward III.Sudbury became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1375 and Lord Chancellor of England in 1380 – two significant roles he would fulfil until his death.
Why was he killed?
Sudbury was murdered during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, when he was ambushed at the Tower of London and beheaded by rebels unhappy with his role in introducing the third poll tax.Along with the Lord High Treasurer, Sir Robert Hales, Sudbury was dragged to the chopping block by one of the revolt's leaders, Johanna Ferrour, after guards granted the peasants access to the building.After being killed, his severed head was impaled onto a pole and placed on London Bridge for the public to see. Sudbury's body was taken to Canterbury Cathedral where it remains to this day.
After six days of being on display in London, Sudbury's decapitated head was removed by the Lord Mayor of London, William Walworth.It was taken to his birthplace of Sudbury and reportedly identified by his brother, John of Chertsey, with whom he had founded a college in the town.The head was given to St Gregory's Church, which Sudbury had helped partly rebuild. Today it is positioned behind a clear screen and a wooden flap in the wall.The Reverend Andrew Doarks told the BBC he got quite the surprise when he took on the church three years ago."It wasn't something that was on the job description and it's not something that comes up on the parish profile as it is known," he said."It's something you don't get at theological college... how to manage severed heads."I sometimes lose sleep and think, 'What if somebody was to run away with him?'"
Mandy Turner, the treasurer at the church, said: "[Simon's head] is nicely hidden away and not obvious to anyone who walks by."We have been very lucky that we haven't had to do anything to it since it was put into the cubby in the wall – it has not deteriorated at all and is very well mummified."In fact, we had some mobile dentists working here and they were looking at the teeth and saying he is not bad for his age."
Simon of Sudbury's skull is on display to the public by appointment only. "We get many visitors that come here to see the head, but others are taken by surprise, and they are not sure if they want to see the head or not," added Ms Turner."Some come because they believe they have a relationship with the Theobald family and others come just out of fascination."There's local people here who have never quite plucked up the courage to come and see it. But it is quite worth seeing and I actually find him quite friendly."
Has the head ever been removed from the wall?
The only time the skull has been removed from the wall was in 2011, when it was taken to West Suffolk Hospital for a CT scan so a lifelike bronze bust of Sudbury could be made.Anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson, who oversaw the project, said at the time: "The unusual thing was seeing the head in the hole in the wall in the church."I was expecting the bone to be a little bit more fragile, maybe a little bit crumbly, because this has been in the wall of a church for 600 years, but actually the bone is very sturdy."It doesn't look as if there's been too much damage."Mr Doarks said: "People call it a head because he has got a bit of vertebrate on the neck, an ear, and there are bits of skin still on him, so we call him Simon's head."
The rest of Sudbury's body is buried in a tomb at Canterbury Cathedral, along with a cannon ball which is used in place of his head, as per a request in his will.According to Ms Turner, the cathedral has asked "several times" for the head but St Gregory's Church "feel the head belongs" there."To us he has become what he was, a man of Sudbury, and that's why we particularly want to keep the head here," she said."The rioters of the Peasants' Revolt brought him back here to his brother, and he has been here ever since, so we feel this is actually where he belongs."Canon Andrew Dodd, the canon treasurer at Canterbury Cathedral, does not believe reuniting the body at this stage would be possible.He said: "It would be a very complicated thing to organise because the tomb is sealed and there is no intention of reopening the tomb at this stage."We're not quite sure why the head is [in Sudbury] and we have the body - it's a real mystery," he added.
You can listen to BBC Radio 4 documentary podcast Don't Lose Your Head! on BBC Sounds
Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
41 minutes ago
- Sky News
Inside the prison doing family visits differently - as children visit father 'at work'
Kane, Harley, Harris and Nelly seem like any young family. The kids - three-year-old Harris and four-year-old Nelly - are excited. They are going to see their dad at "work". They are sweet, energetic little children about to head out for the day. Harley, 30, and Kane, 32, talk via video chat about what they'll do when they meet up and what they are going to have for dinner. It feels like a pretty normal family dynamic, with one crucial difference: Kane is in prison for drug offences, and the video call was connected from HMP Oakwood in the West Midlands. 1:42 We got to spend the day with Harley, Kane and the kids as we experienced what as many as 10,000 children experience every single week: the feeling of going into a prison to see a person you love. There's another crucial difference between what we witnessed and what most other kids have to go through. We were going to a prison rated among the best in the UK for family visitation. The data is spotty, and the exact percentage is tough to measure, but it's regarded throughout the criminal justice ecosystem that a person who receives family visits while incarcerated is 39% less likely to reoffend. The better the visits, so the thinking goes, the more the chance of reoffending diminishes. Our prisons are close to full: as of 28 July, there were 87,966 people in prison in England and Wales. The prison capacity is 89,373, so we are at a rate of 98.4%. That's why a number of prisoners have recently been released early - and why, earlier this year, there was a landmark review into sentencing by David Gauke, which aimed to reduce the number of people sent to prison in the first place. So, how does a programme like the one at Oakwood fit into that? Their scheme, called Journey At Home, seeks to make a family visit as rewarding as possible to the family involved if the prisoner exhibits the right kind of behaviour to show they can handle the responsibility. As we were told by Sean Oliver, the director of Oakwood - yes, it's the prison's job to punish. The deprivation of liberty and personal autonomy does that - but it's also the prison's job to mould an individual to be a member of society upon their release. And it's a connection with family which goes a long way to providing the prisoner with the incentive to come out reformed and stay out. But it's not just the impact on the prisoner. We wanted to explore the impact on the family of losing a loved one to prison. And that takes us back to Kane and Harley's house. It's 10am and we are getting ready to leave with them. It takes two hours minimum to get to and from the prison holding Kane, and the little ones do it week in, week out. Harley tries to make it all as normal as possible. But it's anything but. That's why she calls it "going to see daddy at work". She tells me later in the car ride over, she tries to protect the kids as much as possible. She knows Nelly knows the truth, but is too young to vocalise her feelings about it. And this visit for Harley, Harris and Nelly mirrors Harley's own childhood experience. She, too, had to visit her dad in prison and reflected on how different it was for her kids. She says when she went in, there was nothing for her to do but sit around a table. She said she was bored. But for her kids, they end up meeting other children during the visits and playing with them, making the experience less scary. In a field where some of the data can be argued over, one element is solid: a parent going into prison for a child is an adverse childhood experience. Shona Minson, a leading researcher in children's experiences within the prison system, says losing a loved one to prison can be more destabilising in a child's mind than a death. She told Sky News: "So death happens, you know the person's gone, you know they're not coming back. "Prison, someone goes in, you don't know when they're coming back, so they've lost all kinds of things, but they don't know if they're lost permanently or temporarily." That's why there are growing calls to provide more support to the families of prisoners. Leanne Hennessey, the family interventions manager at Oakwood, says: "Prisoners in here have got a lot of support. "They've got their family. They've got us. But yet, the family on the outside haven't always got that." And that's a feeling echoed by the Ministry of Justice, which said: "We know growing up with a parent in prison can have a devastating impact on a child's life chances - which is why we're ensuring these children are better identified and get the support they need. "The Prison Service offers a range of services to maintain family relationships in prison, including social visits and family days." Back in Oakwood, after a journey that saw us stuck in a traffic jam, the kids are searched, and then we are guided through to meet Kane. We are in a large hall, not unlike a church hall, with a kitchen at one end. Kane enters through a side door and calls out to his kids. The family runs to him - apart from the little boy Harris, who is distracted by a toy. The warm family reunion over, it's time to cook. Kane is making them brown stew chicken - a Jamaican classic. I ask him if he's Jamaican. He says no but adds: "What happens when you're cooking with different people on the wing all the time, you know, you've got different people from different ethnic backgrounds, you've Asian lads cooking curry, teaching us. We all look after each other on the wings." I ask Kane about his family and how seeing them this way makes him feel. He says that without them, he doesn't know where he would be. They are his incentive to behave well and get out of prison. He's due for release in 2029. Daniel Daly runs the visits at the prison. He's a man who admits he got into the work by accident but now feels it's something of a calling. He really believes in what he does and sees the benefits for the prisoner in having that family connection. Mr Daly says that during a visit, there is often a "paradoxical moment". "In that split second," he tells Sky News, "[prisoners] stand still and have a realisation". "The children have just left, they look at you and think, 'I can't come back. I don't want to say goodbye'. "Most people wouldn't say goodbye and say see you later today. But for some of these gents, saying goodbye might be a couple of days, might be about two weeks. That goodbye is too long. "So for me, yeah, it's a paradoxical moment, that split-second where they just think: 'You know what, I need to be a better man.'" After hours of largely unsupervised interaction, Kane and his family sit down for a meal. The four of them sit around a table, talking, eating and being together - maintaining that familial bond. We thank them and say our goodbyes. In his eponymous 2017 review, Lord Michael Farmer - who was recruited by the last Conservative government for a review into family visits - found that prisoners are 39% less likely to reoffend if they see their loved ones. That was a figure he was given by the MoJ to work from, he says, and while his 2017 recommendations were largely listened to by the government, he believes more needs to be done to improve these prison visits. "If there's somebody there on the outside ... who you know cares for you," he says, it can "impart in the prisoner a sense of responsibility". He talked back in 2017 of family visits being a golden thread that ran through a person's rehabilitation. Read more: Men's prisons 'could run out of space in months' Fears drones could be used to lift inmates out of prisons Get Sky News on WhatsApp Follow our channel and never miss an update. Tap here to follow HMP Oakwood is run by G4S and may be exceptional at family visits, but it is certainly the exception when it comes to the prison system. And for Kane, Harley, Harris, and Nelly, it's making all the difference. The hope is that its example can be replicated, where appropriate, in other prisons.
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Strictly Come Dancing: BBC responds as two TV stars accused of taking cocaine
The BBC has responded after it was reported that two Strictly Come Dancing stars have been accused of taking cocaine. The broadcaster is said to have hired an external law firm to probe the drug-taking allegations, which a source said were "well-known" on the show, The Sun on Sunday reports. The claims were reportedly made on behalf of celebrity contestant Wynne Evans in a legal submission to the BBC in March. In response, a BBC spokesperson told Sky News: "We have clear protocols and policies in place for dealing with any serious complaint raised with us. We would always encourage people to speak to us if they have concerns. "It would not be appropriate for us to comment further." Sky News understands that it is not unusual for the BBC to engage an external individual to provide additional expert resource to help deliver a BBC-led investigation. In these cases, they would report to an established BBC team. The allegations published in The Sun on Sunday include a source saying that one Strictly star had told another about a third celebrity on the show: "Have you seen their pupils... they're off their face." "The BBC have known about these allegations for some time, and acknowledged receiving them. Now they are taking firm action," the source reportedly said. The two individuals accused of drug taking have not been named. It is the latest crisis to hit the BBC and Strictly. In July last year, Amanda Abbington accused Strictly dancer Giovanni Pernice of "abusive or threatening behaviour". The actress, who was paired with Pernice, withdrew from the show in 2023. The BBC upheld "some, but not all" of the allegations, with Abbington describing an apology from the corporation as a "vindication", while Pernice denied displaying "abusive or threatening behaviour". In the same month, Strictly professional dancer, Graziano Di Prima confirmed he was leaving the show amid reports of alleged misconduct. Separately, Laura Whitmore alleged "inappropriate behaviour" during her time on the show.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Graham Potter insists Lucas Paqueta is ‘happy and committed' to West Ham
Graham Potter has insisted Lucas Paqueta is 'happy and committed' to West Ham after the Brazil midfielder was cleared of alleged breaches of the Football Association's betting regulations. Paqueta was facing a potential life ban before having his name cleared this week of the spot-fixing sting that had hung over him for two years. The situation ended Paqueta's hopes of a big money move to Manchester City. But despite rumours the Brazilian could leave West Ham before the close of the transfer window, Potter is firmly hoping he stays. 'These things you never know for sure, obviously, because anything can happen in the window with anybody,' the West Ham manager said. 'But at the same time, the news that we've had is just incredibly positive, because if it had gone the other way, there's a whole other line of questions. 'Lucas is happy, Lucas is committed, Lucas is an important person in the dressing room, an important person in the club. 'We love him and we just wanted to help him enjoy his football.' Paqueta's lawyer Alastair Campbell, a partner at the law firm Level, said the case had taken a heavy toll on Paqueta and effectively cost him a Premier League title winner's medal. He was on the brink of a £85m move to City when the charges were announced in August 2023. Campbell said: 'Lucas' life has basically been on hold for the last two years. He woke up every morning with the fear that this could be the day when his career was going to be over. Of course, Lucas is delighted with the outcome of the commission - but what shouldn't be forgotten is that there is an alternative universe where he moves to Manchester City and now has a Premier League winner's medal. 'The strain he has been under since the charges were announced in August 2023 has been incredible. That's something that shouldn't be forgotten in all of this. This case has come at a considerable cost to Lucas, both as a person and as a professional footballer.' Potter said there was little doubt about how difficult the process has been for Paqueta. 'You can imagine how hard it was on a personal level for him, having to fight those allegations, which he's done,' he said. 'The club have supported him through that. 'But again, you forget these guys are Premier League footballers competing at the highest level and to have that as well in the background was an incredible challenge for him. 'It's been a really tough period of his life and his career, so it's a credit to him and his family and everybody connected with him and the support he's had, that he's come through. 'Obviously, if that's a benefit to him, then it's going to be a benefit to us, the team and the club.' Potter, who has signed former Newcastle striker Callum Wilson on a free transfer, confirmed Michail Antonio will not be part of his first team squad after recovering from his car crash. The Jamaica striker, 35, faced a potential career-ending leg operation after a car crash in December but played for his adopted nation in this summer's Gold Cup. He is now out of contract.
