Whether or not Charles Rennie Mackintosh sensed that a modest terraced house in Northampton would contain his last major work may be unknowable, but by 1916 he must have known that what reputation he had in Britain was on the wane
The Queen knew she was dying. Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England, wife to Edward I, had survived the births of sixteen children, a civil war, and a year on crusade with her husband. But by February 1290, at the age of 48, her declining health prompted her to make arrangements for her passage to the next life.
Just as almost every parish church in Britain has remembrances of the First World War, many of them contain objects that recall another momentous episode in our history: the British Empire. Here are three such objects from All Saints, Northampton.
John Clare had been a inpatient at Northampton General Lunatic Asylum for almost twenty years when he wrote his last letter, to James Hipkins. Hipkins, who had never met Clare but admired his work, had written to Dr Wing, the asylum superintendent, to enquire after the poet’s health.