Last call for the crusade

This is the ‘round’ inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Northampton, built in imitation of the church in Jerusalem seen by a local crusader. It was the scene of a mass cross-taking ceremony on 24 June 1268 led by princely brothers Edward and Edmund. Their father King Henry III was absent (at Woodstock) because he had already sworn to go on crusade back in 1250. Since it couldn’t be both him and his sons at the same time, the pope offered to transfer Henry’s vow to Edmund, but the king wanted to keep his options open. He began planning to go overseas after the boys left, but illness and age caught up with him and he died before either returned from the Holy Land.