Aug. 11, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Historical sites let visitors stand in a moment of time

By Mike Haynes

                Sometimes, history is right in front of you.

                If you’ve been to the Alamo or to Washington, D.C., you know what I’m talking about. Kathy and I have been blessed to stand in places where important events happened or where legendary people walked. This summer, we added our footsteps to some historic spots in Great Britain.

     

           The Viking ocean cruise that we had anticipated for two years took us to a different port every day around the British Isles, and every day we visited fun or significant sites with tour guides to explain what we were seeing. I don’t know how much British history that American kids learn these days, but some places Kathy and I were taken to did ring bells in our memories.

                Thomas Becket was the English chancellor of the realm, and in 1162, his friend King Henry II appointed him archbishop of Canterbury. Becket started placing the church above loyalty to the king, however, and the two disagreed on such political issues as how churchmen should be tried by the courts. In 1170, Henry is said to have exclaimed, “Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?,” which prompted four knights to travel to Canterbury Cathedral, get into a tussle with Becket and murder him with their swords.

                Becket eventually became a Catholic saint, and his story has been told in poetry, theater and a 1964 movie starring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole. His martyrdom is one reason pilgrims flocked to Canterbury for centuries, giving Geoffrey Chaucer inspiration to write “The Canterbury Tales.”

The side chapel in the cathedral where Becket was killed is open to visitors, and Kathy and I stood on the stone floor where his blood flowed. The spot is marked by a modern sculpture of red-tipped swords pointing down to an altar built long after his death.

Another day, a proper English gentleman led our tour of Chavenage House, parts of which were built in the late 1300s and most of it in the 1500s. The manor in the Cotswolds region played the “part” of Trenwith House in the recent PBS television series, “Poldark,” which Kathy and I knew going in. But we were surprised when we entered a small bedroom on the second floor and were told that Oliver Cromwell had slept there.

Cromwell, an anti-Catholic Puritan, and his parliament supporters had taken over the government from King Charles I, a devout Catholic, after the English Civil War. The king was imprisoned, and in 1648, Cromwell made the rounds of influential members of parliament to convince them to support executing Charles.

When Cromwell visited the Chavenage owner, MP Nathaniel Stephens, he stayed in the very bedroom where Kathy and I stood on the wooden floor. Last month, it was decorated with a 1640s tapestry, a smooth, metal helmet that gave the parliamentary army the nickname, “Roundheads,” and a portrait of Cromwell. Our tour guide said Stephens reluctantly agreed to the execution, and Charles was beheaded in 1649.

  We also walked into a bedroom at the huge Blenheim Palace complex where a more recent notable Englishman was born. The first duke of Marlborough led a significant military victory over the French in 1704, and English Queen Anne rewarded him with land and a new mansion, which became Blenheim Palace.

The mother of one of Marlborough’s descendants was attending a party at Blenheim in 1874 when she went into labor. The baby was Winston Churchill, later the prime minister who led England through World War II.

We walked through Churchill’s birth bedroom, which had floral wallpaper and a bed, but not the one from 1874. The famous statesman also proposed to his wife, Clementine, on the expansive palace grounds in 1908 and later said, “At Blenheim I took two very important decisions: to be born and to marry.”

My wife and I have been privileged to visit some fascinating places through the years, including Paul McCartney’s childhood home in Liverpool and Davy Crockett’s birthplace in Tennessee (despite the song, it wasn’t on a mountaintop). Probably the most remarkable, though, the hardest to put your mind around, were the places where Jesus walked.

In 2019, we toured Israel with a group from Washington Avenue Christian Church. We visited some sites where experts think Christ was present and others where his sandals almost certainly touched the ground.

A hill next to the Sea of Galilee is considered the likely place where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the

Mount. The Garden Tomb in Jerusalem could have been the place where he rose from the dead – or that momentous event could have happened at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

For sure, Jesus spent time in Capernaum, where our group walked in the remains of a synagogue and viewed the ruins of the house believed to be Peter’s. We didn’t see his footprints, but we know he spent time in that town. It’s mind-blowing to think about it.

 You don’t have to visit all those places to appreciate what happened in the past. And in the case of Christ, we know he’s still around.