THE LEGEND OF GREY DOLPHIN

One of the oldest churches in England, the Church of St Mary with St Sexburgha, or Minster Abbey, as it is usually called, stands high up on a hill in Minster, a village on the Isle of Sheppey. A Benedictine nunnery was founded here about AD670 by Sexburga (not a mistake, just an alternative spelling), Queen of Kent from 664 to 670, and Queen of Wessex from 672 to 673. It was much battered by the Vikings, and was rebuilt in the 12th century with a new parish church alongside. Thanks to this parochial adjunct, the building survived the Dissolution, and part of the original nuns' chapel, built with Kentish ragstone and containing flints and Roman tiles, can be seen in the north-east corner of the present church.

The church is actually two church buildings in one. The north side is the old nunnery church, and the south is the nave of the 12th century parochial church. The massive west tower was erected in the 15th century. The Norman west doorway was actually moved to its present position during the restoration work of the Victorian era. In the south wall, a horse's head emerging from the waves is carved beside the figure of a knight clad in the chain mail of the thirteenth century. His hands are clasped in prayer; his legs, crossed in that position so prized by Templars in ancient, and tailors in modern, days, show him to be a soldier of the faith in Palestine. These figures are the effigies of Robert de Shurland and his faithful horse, Grey Dolphin. And herein lies a story.

Once upon a time, a bedraggled, sea stained corpse was washed up on the bank of the River Medway at Chatham in Kent and was interred by a monk, Father Fothergill, assisted by the clerk of Chatham, Emmanuel Saddleton, in a grave close to the shrine of Saint Bridget. That night, around midnight, Emmanuel was getting ready for bed when he was interrupted by a strange apparition (none other than Saint Bridget herself) which appeared in his room and ordered him to dig up the body, because the man had died in mortal sin, and cast it back into the River Medway. Emmanuel, of course, could do nothing but obey the blessed saint so that she could return to her grave and rest in peace.

A few days later the corpse came ashore again, this time on the shore near Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, on the estate of Robert, Baron de Shurland. When Sir Robert heard of this he ordered his servant Periwinkle to dig a grave twenty feet deep, and then sent for Father Fothergill. On his arrival at the graveside the friar was ordered by Sir Robert to bury the body. This the worthy refused to do. He had done it once and upset Saint Bridget, and he wasn't going to risk doing it again. This time it was Sir Robert's turn to be upset, and he tried to pull his sword from its scabbard to slay said friar on the spot, but, for some reason (interference from Saint Bridget, perhaps) it would not come out, so he gave the Friar such a kick in the you-know-where that he shot head first into the grave, where he unfortunately broke his neck.

The scene now moves to Canterbury. Saint Bridget, it seems, had decided to retire from the scene and leave it to Saint Austin, a higher authority, to carry on. Saint Austin appeared to the superior of the monastery, Abbot Anselm, in the middle of the night and asked him what he was going to do about it. Anselm, it seems, hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about, at which point Saint Austin informed him that a fellow monk had been murdered and interred in the same grave as some unfortunate being who had died in mortal sin, and told him he had to write letters to the pope, the coroner and the sheriff, demanding that something be done. The sheriff decided to do something, and collecting an assemblage of fighting men, attacked Robert in his castle at Eastchurch during the lunch break. Unfortunately for him, Robert had fought in the crusades, and knew something about such things. He finished his lunch and then took a siesta. When he woke, the siege was still in progress, so he took his trusty sword, Tickletoby, sallied forth and quickly routed the besiegers before returning to his castle for a dinner of oysters, his favourite meal.

Meanwhile, the pope, having received his letter from Anselm, had written a reply in which all Christian people were enjoined to aid in the extermination of the offender under pain of excommunication. However, since the pope had offended the king, Edward Longshanks, nothing much was done about it, and Robert realised that if he could only receive the king's pardon for this peccadillo, the pope could go and take a running jump at himself.

At this time the king had been assembling an army to carry on his wars against the French. This army was at the moment encamped around the mouth of the Thames, and His Majesty was due to come down by water to review his troops. So Robert, finding that all the boats in the locality had been broken up for use as firewood by the troops, mounted his horse Grey Dolphin, and plunged into the sea to visit the king on his barge and plead his cause. The king, with an eye to the future and a promise from Sir Robert to join his army in the future, agreed to pardon him forthwith, and got the Archbishop of Canterbury to produce a document recording his decision.

Having received his pardon, now Sir Robert swam his horse back to the shore, where he was met by an old crone who assured him that, although the horse had saved his life, it would be the death of him. Nw Sir Robert was not the sort of fellow who was willing to take this sort of chance, so, drawing Tickletoby from its scabbard, he struck off the head of Grey Dolphin in one mighty stroke.

In the following year, the king's war with France came to an end. Unfortunately, William Wallace was kicking up a rumpus in the far north, so the king, with Sir Robert in tow in payment for his pardon, set forth. It was two years before Sir Robert returned, and as he came ashore he saw the old crone again, this time sitting on a stone on the beach. But as he approached her, she disappeared. In a fit of pique he kicked the stone, only to realise that it was not a stone as he thought, but the skull of his old faithful horse, Grey Dolphin. And after two years scurrying around Scotland, his boots were not in the best of condition, and gave way under the assault. Sir Robert felt pain in his big toe, and investigation showed that it had been pierced by a tooth from the skull. By the time he had walked back to his house in Eastchurch his toe was much inflamed. He took to his bed, but by evening of the following day his toe was so bad that the leech, Bargrave, amputated it. But gangrene had set in, and the operation failed to save poor Sir Robert. His dying words were "Tell the old hag to go to ....". Whither remains a secret.

How do I know all this. Well, I was born on the Isle of Sheppey, at Queensborough. When I was still a baby the family moved into the parish of Minster and Minster Abbey was my parish church for the next twenty-nine years. My first school was Eastchurch C of E School, only a stones throw or two from the derelict de Shurland Hall. The Abbey is the church where Mary and I were married in 1948.

ps. Another more probable - but less romantic - reason accounting for the horse's head on the tomb is that Sir Robert, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1272, obtained the right to collect flotsam and jetsam from wreckage from the sea off Sheppey. The right was confined to the distance that a mounted knight could ride out at ebb tide and touch any floating article with the end of his lance. Apparently 'Grey Dolphin' was Sir Robert's favourite horse for this task. Also, research suggests that Sir Robert de Shurland actually died in France. But I know which story I prefer.

BILL HUTCHINGS