Two Stained Glass Windows that Have a Story to Tell.



At the Vyne Estate just outside Basingstoke among many others you can see these two stained glass windows.   One is of a young King Henry VIII kneeling in prayer.  Henry often visited the Vyne which was the estate of Lord Sandys.  He would visit with Catherine of Aragon regularly since he valued very much the opinions of this Lord.   While in Basingstoke since in his youth he was very devout and had a great love for Our Lady he would have visited the Shrine to Our Lady in Basingstoke which was destroyed at the Reformation.   Nevertheless despite carefully keeping on the Kings side during the Reforms it seems that Sandys retained much of his Catholicity and rather than smashing the windows he removed then carefully and kept them somewhere at the Vyne.    This was wise because Henry also visited him with his new wife Anne Boleyn.  

But what can the Stained Glass Window of Our Lady tell us?   There are many similarities between this image and that of Our Lady of Walsingham.  The image reproduced at Walsingham came for a wax seal which was used to give the authority of the Shrine to letters and correspondence.   We have nothing to show us what the statue of Our Lady of Basingstoke looked like or does this Stained Glass Window actually be a copy?   We have after all the Saxon throne which Our Lady of Walsingham is also sitting on.   Behind the chair we have the rainbow denoting God's Covenant with mankind.  Then there is the halos on the head of both images.    It is definitely Saxon and of the medieval period.   There is also a date on the bottom of the image which is blurred in the photo but I hope that I or someone just as excited gets there to look and to question the guides.  It seems to be 13,, something.  

Now Lord Sandys would have been responsible for the safety of the shrine in Basingstoke and I cannot see how he would have chosen the image of a shrine from some other place.  

But I am sure that if more evidence is necessary we will get it at the Vyne

The image is called Virgo Immaculata and with her foot on the serpent it is a witness to the early belief in the Immaculate Conception.  

I believe that Mary wants her image restored and as at Lourdes wants "processions to come hither"

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