Published 6th Apr 2023, 06:00 BST

King Charles himself is to attend York Minster today for his first official Maundy service, and with it come renewed calls for Knaresborough’s historic role to be recognised.

According to former teachers and historians’ research, records can be traced back to Holy Week in the year 1210 outlining King John’s expenses the giving of alms from the town.

Bernard Higgins, a retired teacher and avid campaigner, has written to Buckingham Palace in the hope that one day there can be some formal recognition.

Historian Bernard Higgins has written to King Charles, calling on him to acknowledge and celebrate Knaresborough's role in the Maundy tradition when he visits York Minster for his first alms service on April 6.
It is though King John handed out the first coins in Knaresborough in 1210.
Picture Bruce Rollinson
27 March 2023. — Historian Bernard Higgins has written to King Charles, calling on him to acknowledge and celebrate Knaresborough's role in the Maundy tradition when he visits York Minster for his first alms service on April 6. It is though King John handed out the first coins in Knaresborough in 1210. Picture Bruce Rollinson 27 March 2023.

“I would like King Charles and Camilla to come and visit, to acknowledge and celebrate what King John established 800 years ago,” he said. “No monarch has done since then.”

King Charles and the Queen Consort Camilla are to host their first Royal Maundy Service today at York Minster.

Some 74 men and 74 women, signifying the age of the monarch and selected from dioceses across the country, will receive the Maundy as a gift from the King to thank them for their service and for making a difference to the lives of people in their local communities.

The late Queen distributed the Royal Maundy at York Minster on two occasions: first on March 30, 1972 and again on April 5, 2012, during her Diamond Jubilee Year.

Expenditure recorded in the Rotalus Misae, from the National Archives in Kew, that was spent by King John during Holy Week 1210 in supplying the poorest in the community with the Royal Maundy ie the clothing, food, refreshments and money over three days.

Historian Bernard Higgins has written to King Charles, calling on him to acknowledge and celebrate Knaresborough's role in the Maundy tradition when he visits York Minster for his first alms service on April 6.
It is though King John handed out the first coins in Knaresborough in 1210.
Picture Bruce Rollinson
27 March 2023. — Expenditure recorded in the Rotalus Misae, from the National Archives in Kew, that was spent by King John during Holy Week 1210 in supplying the poorest in the community with the Royal Maundy ie the clothing, food, refreshments and money over three days. Historian Bernard Higgins has written to King Charles, calling on him to acknowledge and celebrate Knaresborough's role in the Maundy tradition when he visits York Minster for his first alms service on April 6. It is though King John handed out the first coins in Knaresborough in 1210. Picture Bruce Rollinson 27 March 2023.

In Knaresborough it was the late Mayor Arnold Kellett, a renowned Yorkshire dialect expert and author who died in 2009, who first started the research.

A well known historian and former teacher, he is said to have even discussed it with the Queen on her visit to Ripon Cathedral for Maundy Services in 1985.

Mr Kellet had argued the case that Maundy owed its early development, and perhaps even its origins, to the “least humble of monarchs” King John.

According to the Royal Almonry’s records the first known Maundy was said to be at Rochester in 1215.

Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip at Ripon Cathedral after giving out Maundy money in 1985

King John’s expenses, however, are recorded in an historic document ‘Rotolus Misea’ at the National Archives in Kew, which detail him giving alms to the poor on the Thursday before Easter some five years before.

Mr Higgins, who had invited the Queen just before Covid, has received a response from the King’s diary secretary to say she has passed the exchange to the King’s Lord High Almoner for careful consideration for the future.

“The first recorded Royal Maundy took place in 1210, when King John was in residence at Knaresborough Castle,” said Mr Higgins.

“He visited to hunt, and enjoy himself, but also to collect taxes. He was also trying to keep an eye on the bandits that roamed the North of England.

“King John was trying to get back in the Pope’s good books. He equipped 13 of the poorest men in the town with food, clothes and money. Each day that expense is recorded.”

How the ancient Royal Maundy tradition may have come from Yorkshire centuries ago