19. ST MARY’S INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH INCIDENT REPORT
Competition entry by Annabel Smyth
St Mary’s Institute for Historical Research Incident Report
Place visited: Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln
Date and time: 16 January 1396, 10:30
Objective: To observe the wedding of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Lady Katherine Swynford, his long-term mistress. Observe and Record only; no interaction planned.
Personnel: S Hingis, Senior Historian
J Morris, Historian
C Fitzgerald, Trainee Historian
T Keighley, Security
Details of Incident:
We arrived as scheduled in a dark corner of the grounds of Lincoln Cathedral, and made our way to our assigned positions. Mr Morris and I were to join the crowd outside the main doors of the Cathedral, while Dr Hingis and Mr Keighley waited outside Lady Katherine’s house at the Chancery.
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, was marrying his long-term mistress, Lady Katherine Swynford, by whom he had had four children. They had been separated for some years after the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, although the separation appears to have been more form than reality, as Lady Katherine was often seen around the Court. Certainly, she bore him no more children, as far as is known – she may have had other children who did not live. However, in 1394, the Duke’s second wife, Constanza of Castile, died, and left the couple free to marry, despite the disapproval of many other nobles.
The groom arrived as scheduled; there was some booing from the crowd, but also some cheers. The bride arrived a few minutes later, also greeted with mixed boos and cheers, after which Mr Morris and I were joined by the other two. As they arrived, Ms Hingis tripped over an object lying on the ground. We thought at first that it was some kind of root vegetable, perhaps designed to be thrown by someone who objected to the Duke’s marriage, but who had then noticed all the Duke’s men-at-arms and decided not to proceed. But then I realised that it was in fact a “pot-de-fer”, or iron pot, a primitive gun. It was shaped like a vase, only made out of metal, and this one was lying on its side, with a length of cord hanging out its far end, and the end of the cord was smouldering.
I pointed this out to Mr Keighley, who proceeded to stamp on the end of the cord. Dr Hingis explained to him that it was a primitive bomb; gunpowder weapons were beginning to be used, although primarily for shock and awe, rather than to kill people.
We were not sure who would have placed this bomb, and who it was aimed at. Where it was, it would arguably have maimed or even killed one of us, but then, who would want to kill us? Neither the Duke nor his Duchess were popular, but there were more reliable methods of killing them, had someone been determined to do so. Our current hypothesis is that it was placed by an illegal time-traveller who thought they had a good reason for disrupting the wedding. However, there was no sign of anybody else who was not contemporary at that moment, so we reckoned it was down to us to deal with the immediate threat.
Without the fuse, the bomb had, as we thought, been rendered harmless. We debated what to do with it – I was all in favour of leaving it where it was, but the others thought we should move it. The question was, where to? Eventually we decided that Dr Hingis and I would visit the midden behind Lady Katherine’s house, and bury it there.
I queried whether this was wise, given the heat that the midden probably generated, and suggested we had better shake the gunpowder, if that is what it was, out of the container before burying it. However, I was overruled, and the container was duly buried in the midden.
However, it only took a very few moments for the heat of the midden to cause the gunpowder to become unstable and explode. Dr Hingis was in the throes of answering a call of nature, and the projectile contained in the vessel struck her on the left buttock. Fortunately, the wound was not deep, although we were and are very concerned about infection.
We were about to abort the mission and take Dr Hingis home so she could get the care she needed, but this had to be delayed because at that moment the Time Police turned up and arrested all of us, plus a couple of random contemporaries, on the grounds that we were disturbing the timeline.
The TP officers were disinclined to listen to our explanation that, on the contrary, we were keeping the timeline intact, as there were no reports of any explosions or disturbances as the wedding. Ignoring the fact that we were leaving a pod where it did not belong, they insisted on taking us all to their London headquarters. I am given to understand that one of their officers later returned the pod to St Mary’s, thus alerting you to our predicament.
I wish to thank you for bailing us out from TP HQ, and returning us to St Mary’s. I do hope and pray that Dr Hingis will soon recover from her injury. I also hope that you will agree that this was not was my fault.
(Signed) Catherine Fitzgerald, trainee historian
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