Near Coxwold, in North Yorkshire, Newburgh Priory is a house born of a former priory, where Tudor history crosses two mysteries: the night a queen spent there on her way to Scotland, and a sealed tomb said to hold the body of Oliver Cromwell.
From a priory to a Tudor house
Newburgh was an Augustinian priory, dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538. Like so many others, it was at once bought back: as early as 1539, Anthony de Bellasis acquired it for £1,062, and his kinsman Sir William Bellasis converted it into a private house in 1546. It is a textbook case of the reconversion of monasteries into gentry residences — the present house still mixes monastic remains with Tudor and Stuart additions. The Belasyse family then climbed the social ladder, from High Sheriff of Yorkshire (1574-75) to the title of baronet (1611): a rise typical of the beneficiaries of the Reformation.
A queen and a regicide
Two great figures haunt Newburgh. In 1503, even before the Dissolution, Margaret Tudor — daughter of Henry VII, on her way to marry James IV of Scotland — spent the night of 17 July here, lodged by the prior; this union would seal, a century later, the Union of the Crowns. Much later, Newburgh became one of the presumed sites of the burial of Oliver Cromwell: the Lord Protector's daughter, Mary, having married a Belasyse, tradition holds that the regicide's body (exhumed and desecrated at the Restoration) was secretly brought back and walled up at Newburgh, in a tomb the family has always refused to open. To see: the house mixing monastic remains and Tudor/Stuart additions, the water garden and clipped yews, the sealed tomb said to be Cromwell's.
Did you know?
At Newburgh there is a tomb no one is allowed to open: according to family tradition, it holds the body of Oliver Cromwell, saved from desecration at the Restoration and walled up here in secret. Several figures, including King Edward VII, are said to have asked to open it; the Belasyse family has always refused. The mystery remains entire — and the tomb, obstinately closed, has kept its secret for more than three centuries.
Notes
Newburgh Priory lies near Coxwold, North Yorkshire; house and gardens open to the public seasonally. Hours to check.
Quiz
- What did Newburgh become after 1538?
- A Tudor house (via the Bellasis)
- A cathedral
- A fort
- Which queen spent the night here in 1503?
- Margaret Tudor (on her way to Scotland)
- Mary Stuart
- Anne Boleyn
- Whose body is the sealed tomb said to hold?
- That of Oliver Cromwell
- That of Henry VIII
- That of Richard III